William was born in 1883. A tailor’s cutter and a member of the Plymouth Brethren, he lived in Haddington, Scotland, where the Military Service Tribunal allowed him exemption only from combatant service, which he accepted and was placed the Non-Combatant Corps. In late 1918 he succumbed to influenza, which turned into pneumonia, and was allowed home to his wife in Kilmarnock where he died on 14 December 1918.

He is buried in Kilmarnock Cemetery.