[1][2][3] Winskill was born at Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, April 27, 1834, with a disease considered hopeless by the physicians of his native town.

He and the family suffered because of the father's alcoholism, and few who knew him in his boyhood ever imagined he would have been able to render such service to the temperance cause as to become an acknowledged historian of the movement.

[1][2] He was one of the original members of the Young Men's Temperance Association, beginning his public career as a reciter, singer and essayist.

[1] After his marriage, he spent some years in Derbyshire as a book and insurance agent and temperance advocate, walking many miles to and from his meetings.

In 1871, he became an agent for the Warrington Total Abstinence Society, serving with success for over two years, introducing the International Organisation of Good Templars (I.O.G.T.