[4] He was educated at Bathgate Academy and George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and saw active service during World War II, serving with the Scottish Horse (Royal Artillery) from 1942 to 1947 in France, the Low Countries, Germany, Indonesia and Malaya.
Billy Wolfe was a man of wide interests: a longstanding member of the Saltire Society, the Scout Association and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a Justice of the Peace, and an officebearer in the Scottish Poetry Library, as well as being a poet in Scots in his own right.
Initially he was more interested in cultural matters, but his dissatisfaction with the government of Scotland grew, and he became convinced of the need for Scottish independence.
Wolfe formed the Social and Economic Inquiry Society of Scotland, a forum committed to advancing the case for independence through statistical research.
His idea of fusing the St Andrew's Cross with a thistle led to the creation of a distinctive new SNP logo, which is still in use today.
However, following a difficult period which saw the passing of the Scotland Act 1978, a number of internal divisions in the SNP and the failure of the party to win in a series of by-elections, in 1978 Wolfe announced his intention to stand down as leader after almost ten tumultuous years in office.
[2][4] Although he was elected as president of the SNP in 1980, succeeding Robert McIntyre, Wolfe's term of office ended in June 1982, following an intervention by him in advance of the proposed visit of Pope John Paul II to Scotland, causing serious controversy by claiming the Pope represented an "alien culture".
[2][4] In a January 1982 letter to the Church of Scotland magazine, Life and Work, Wolfe attacked the appointment of a papal nuncio to the United Kingdom.