Born: November 4, 1843, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Died: June 24, 1914, Brookline, Massachusetts.
Buried: Forest Hills Cemetery and Crematory, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
William was the son of Richard Newton and Lydia Greatorex, husband of Emily Stevenson Cooke, and nephew of hymnist William Newton.
During the American civil war, he served in Landis’ (Pennsylvania) Battery.
After the war, he attended the University of Pennsylvania (AB 1865, AM 1868, honorary DD 1890), and the Episcopal Divinity School in Philadelphia. He was ordained an Episcopal deacon June 19, 1868, and priest February 19, 1869.
He served as assistant rector at the Church of The Epiphany, Philadelphia (1866–70); minister at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston, Massachusetts (1877–82); pastor of St. Stephen’s Church, Pittsfield, Massachusetts (1881–1900); chaplain at the English Church in Dinan, Brittany, France (1903–04); and rector at the Church of the Ascension, Wakefield, Rhode Island (1905–06).