 Young William was educated at Queen's School, North Adelaide and St Peter's College, then studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, where he had a brilliant career, culminating in a Rhodes Scholarship, which took him in 1907 to Magdalen College, Oxford, followed by pathology work at the Lister laboratory, for which research work ("concerning passive immunity in relation to infectious diseases") he was awarded the Philip Walker Studentship in pathology of £200 per year for three years.He returned to Adelaide in 1913, and was appointed to the Adelaide Hospital staff as an in-patient physician, which he filled for 20 years.He also served as lecturer in the University of Adelaide Faculty of Medicine and acting Dean in 1926 during Prof. Frederic Wood-Jones' absences, and when Wood-Jones resigned to take a position at the University of Hawaii, was appointed to the post for the remainder of 1926–27.