William was born in 1887, originally living in Barony, Lanarkshire, Scotland, but later moving to Glasgow, where he became manager of a butcher’s shop. A Roman Catholic, he accepted exemption only from combatant service as designated by his Military Service Tribunal, and reported to the 1st Scottish Company, Non-Combatant Corps, in Glasgow on 4 April 1916, and was sent to France on 30 May 1916. In October 1918 he succumbed to the worldwide influenza epidemic, developing in his case to bronchial pneumonia, and was admitted to the 1st South African General Hospital, Abbeville, where he died on 27 October 1918, leaving a widow so far identified only as M.

He is buried in a Abbeville Community Cemetery Extension.