William was born in Greenhithe on 30th December 1810 and christened at Swanscombe on 20th February 1811. He was eleven years old when his mother died and so from 1821 was raised by his father and Elizabeth Hazelton, the mother of Williams's eight half brothers and sisters.

In the mid 1830s William must have married Jane Hoadby but despite both of them having been born and raised in Swanscombe there is no record of the wedding in the parish registers. Their first child, Mary, was born in 1836 whem \William would have been 26 years old and Jane 19.  As she was then still a minor it may be that they had married elsewhere.

In 1840 they had another daughter, Elizabeth, and the following year the census shows that they were living in Greenhithe and that William was trading as a plumber. In 1843 a son, William, was born, also in Greenhithe, but their next child, Rosina was born in Sutton-at-Hone.. There is further evidence of the move in his father's will of 1846 where he and his sister Mary Ann were described as "of Sutton-at-Hone".Their final child,. Edwin Baldwin Barham, was born on 1st October 1848, at Sutton-at-Hone, and his birth certificate describes his father’s profession was plumber and glazier, and confirms his mother’s name as Jane Elizabeth, formerly Hoadby. In 1851 they were still at Sutton-at-Hone, but William’s occupation was now “painter”.

Jane had died by the time of the 1861 census (probably in 1860) and it shows that William (now aged 41) had given up the trades of plumber/painter/glazier and had moved to Maidstone with Margaret and Edwin where he was Innkeeper of the Globe Inn. Rosina was apprenticed nearby as a dressmaker to Elizah Soran, a Draper, but there was no sign of William junior or Elizabeth (who may of course have married).

This is the last appearance of William in the census records and no trace of his death has been found.

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