Thomas Wildman, domestic chaplain to the Earl of Galloway at Garlieston and later incumbent of St Andrew's, Callander, and Sarah Anne Bates of Kirriemuir.
William had five siblings: Marion (1848–1900), Agnes Sophia (1850–1932), Mary Rachel Whitworth (1854–1911), Elizabeth Annie (1855–1931), and John Bates (1859–1929).
On the 21 July 1908 she was invested by the King at Buckingham Palace with the Royal Red Cross (First Class) medal 'in recognition of her special devotion and competency in connection with her nursing duties in India', and on 12 December 1911 she was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind Medal (2nd class) for public service in India.
John Bates Wildman (1859–1929) was Assistant master at Lockers Park School, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.
From 1864 to 1870, William attended Glenalmond College where he became Captain of the School and was awarded the Buccleugh Scholarship for Classics and the Trower Medal for Mathematics.
Harper as an assistant master at Sherborne School where, after a brief period as Sixth Form Tutor, he took over the teaching of the Classical Upper Fifth.
In May 1883, William opened a school boarding house in Newland, Sherborne with five boarders (Herbert Graystone, James Kelway, Percy John Paterson, Frank Sydney Paterson and Edgar Wood), however, in 1884 the School Governors granted him permission to build a new boarding house in Westbury, Sherborne on land known as 'Troy Town Close' owned by the Digby Estate.
[2] A libel action brought against Headmaster E.M. Young in November 1889 by a former master resulted in a rapid decline in the number of boys attending the School with the result that in February 1890 the Headmaster wrote to the School Governors that 'Mr Wildman, one of the most valuable of our Masters, in despair of filling the House he has recently built, is standing for a headmastership, and with his departure our new Cadet Corps must, I fear, collapse'.
In many ways, like a true scholar, he was as simple-minded as a child; and then again he would make it quite clear even to the most unfledged intelligence that he was, in regard to religious and moral tradition, emancipated to a degree that bewildered and disturbed.
His chief friend and crony was our deaf music-master, Mr Louis N. Parker, who, with his famous Sherborne Pageant actually inaugurated that form of historic panorama, and who subsequently became a considerable playwright.
[4] In September 1888, William formed the Sherborne School Cadet Corps, attached to the 1st Volunteer Battalion Dorset Regiment.
The Upper Fifth Form presented William with a silver spoon, and, on behalf of the School in general, he was given several handsome books.
In 1921, the former Sun Inn was renamed 'Bow House' at the suggestion of William in remembrance of the adjoining 'Bow' or archway that marked the boundary of the Abbey precincts.
Winifred's brother, Arthur Henry Spens Black (1857–1888), had been a music master at Glenalmond College where William was a pupil.