He was the third son of James and Ellen White and was better known as WC, and intimately referred to as "Willie" by his mother.

His first recommendation for denominational work came when he was only 20 years old in Oakland, California, where his father had begun to publish the Signs of the Times magazine.

At the age of 21 he reluctantly accepted the invitation to be chairman of the committee responsible for the project and at the end of one year presented a balance of $2000 U.S. dollars profit.

[2] The leaders decided that William and Mary White should study German and French at Battle Creek College to go to Europe assist John N. Andrews in establishing the third denominational publisher.

However, due to a shortage of leaders with administrative ability, William was appointed as a student member of the school committee and was called to the publisher in Battle Creek as deputy director and also director of the Western Health Reform Institute (Western Institute for Reform health).

He remained in Battle Creek until 1880, devoting his time to the interests of publishing, educational and medical, and taking active part in the development of the work of the Sabbath School.

After the death of his father in August 1881, certain responsibilities to assist his mother in her travels and in the publication of her books fell on his shoulders.

His wife, Mary White, contracted tuberculosis while serving their editorial activities in Switzerland and died in 1890, at the age of 33.

During the 1890s, then up until the end of his mother's life in 1915, he was especially prominent as an influential minister in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The definitive biography of W. C. White is a doctoral dissertation by Jerry Moon, chair of the Church History Department of the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.

These articles appeared in the official journal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Review and Herald.