[3] Williams was born on 9 February 1933, the son of Dr Norman Powell Williams (died 1943), DD, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford from 1927 to his death in 1943 and Canon of Christ Church, and Muriel de Lérisson Cazenove (died 1979),[4] from a landed gentry family.
Between 1955 and 1957, he served as Subaltern in the Headquarters of the King's Royal Rifle Corps in Winchester and in the regiment's 1st Battalion in Derna in Libya.
A right-handed middle order batsman, Williams played 87 first-class cricket matches, 40 of them for Essex and 42 for Oxford University.
[7] He was particularly successful for Oxford University, batting generally at No 3 and scoring 115 against Lancashire and then an unbeaten 139 followed by 89 in the second innings in the match against Hampshire.
The team was not successful, failing to win any of its first-class matches, and Williams' captaincy attracted some criticism in Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.
"That in itself may have undermined the determination of the side, though a more likely handicap to the individual players was the length of time C. C. P. Williams took to decide who would be in the XI to meet Cambridge.
[16] But his form declined and Oxford had the worse of a drawn University Match, though Williams' own second innings 47 not out helped save the game for his side.
[17] After the university season was over, he again played for Essex, and scored his first century in County Championship cricket, making 119 and sharing a fourth-wicket partnership of 200 with Doug Insole in the match against Leicestershire at Leicester.
Williams returned to first-class cricket in the second half of the 1958 season, playing 10 matches for Essex and adding what Wisden called "extra stability" to the county's batting.
In the 1964 General Election, Williams stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as the Labour Party candidate for Colchester.
[23] From 1988 to 1990, Williams was chair of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and from 1989 to 1999 Busby trustee of Westminster School.