Bill was born and educated in Melbourne, and after graduating from the University of Melbourne with a PhD in geology was appointed Curator of Minerals at the then National Museum of Victoria in 1974.
His work has taken him to many far-flung places in Australia and the rest of the world, such as Greenland, Pakistan and Canada, where he has collected rocks and minerals for the museum. He has described nearly 30 new minerals and published about 180 papers.
He has been involved with international mineralogical organisations for over 20 years and his contributions to geological knowledge and to scientific organisations have been recognised by the award of the Selwyn Medal by the Geological Society of Australia in 1999 and an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) in 2006.