While involved with the company they faced an indictment for smoke pollution at Park Mills, and showed an unsympathetic response in line with 19th-century culture to a weavers' pay strike due to low wages.

[4][5] William had three brothers, John (1791–1867), Benjamin (1793 – Athens 1817) and Henry (d.Paris 1825), and an unmarried sister Harriet (1795 – Hyde Park 30 April 1883).

[10][11] Gott's second wife was the widow Susannah Maria McLauchlan Raoux née Backler (Paris 21 January 1822 – Lewisham 8 March 1901),[10][12] whom he married on 28 July 1851 in Kennington, Surrey,[13] and again on 6 April 1853 in Blatherwycke, Northamptonshire.

[20][21][22] In June 1829 William Gott's governess Miss Daniel innocently married one "John" Stanley, a wool merchant, broker, father to eleven children and uncertificated bankrupt from London who had been living in Leeds for a few years.

The Dean of Chichester would bear us witness [that] ... in all his many works Mr. Gott was at his right hand ... Kindness to others, sympathy with all sorrow, and a desire to make all around him happy, were the prominent points of his character.

F.J. Wood said:[26] [Gott was] upright and just in every relation of life, gentle and considerate towards all who were brought into contact with him, generous and munificent in his charities, the sympathising friend of the poor, the warm and constant supporter of every good work both at home and abroad, a true gentleman in the highest sense of the word, a sincere and humble Christian ... the name of William Gott has long been a household word in the mouths of many of us.

[31] Gott "had not enjoyed the best of health for some years past",[32] when he died suddenly on 25 August 1863 at Patterdale, Northumberland, while visiting.

[33] He was not ill when he arrived but, according to the London Evening Standard, on 20 August "he got wet during a short walk",[34] "and a serious attack of dysentery came on, from which he never rallied".

[42][43][nb 6] The legal case was of great interest to industrialists and engineers, on account of the conflict between potential benefits and dangers of industrial progress.

The charge was as follows:[44] The indictment charged that they, on the 13th March 1823, in the borough of Leeds, with force and arms, near the dwelling-houses of divers of His Majesty's liege subjects, did construct and set up a certain engine, worked by steam, and divers furnaces and stoves employed in the working of the said engine, and did improperly and negligently burn large quantities of coke, coal, charcoal and other materials, whereby divers noisome and unwholesome smokes and vapours were emitted, so that the air at Leeds was impregnated with the said smokes and vapours, and was rendered and became greatly corrupted, offensive, uncomfortable and unwholesome.

However, "a steam engine consumes, as it has been usually employed, as great a quantity of coals in one hour as a moderate family does in twelve months".

Vegetables in gardens near the Bean Ings mill had been "disfigured and polluted with soot"; linen could not be washed and dried, and dyers had to re-dye.

Around the end of January 1831, the patient weavers finally applied for the belated wage increase, and were required to wait for two weeks for a reply.

On its third attempt, the deputation was received at the Bean Ings Mill by William Gott and Dixon, who refused the wage rise.

[47] In 1842 Leeds Town Council held a meeting to discuss local manufacturers' bankruptcies and workers' consequent poverty caused by the Corn Laws, whose effect was to divert trade from Britain to the Continent.

A letter from Gott & Son, instancing the diversion of large orders to France and Belgium, was read out at the meeting.

William Gott "built up a magnificent collection of rare books, now, unfortunately, dispersed, which included several early editions of the Bible, and Shakespeare's works.

[49] The Leeds Intelligencer said:[25] [William Gott] was not unmindful of the more refined pursuits of life, and his love of the fine arts formed his chief recreation at home, where he delighted to surround himself with those objects of taste which he had collected from boyhood upwards.

[56][nb 7] A set of at least 55 drawings from the Gott collection, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francesco Francia, Peregrino da Cesena and other artists, is now in the British Museum.

William may have travelled to Joseph's studio in Rome to sit for his portrait, which was exhibited in Leeds Art Gallery in 2011.

[60] As executors of the will of Abigail Rhodes of Armley House, the brothers passed on £50 (equivalent to £6,248.07 in 2023) for the benefit of Leeds Dispensary, in 1845.

[33] The Leeds Intelligencer reported that William Gott also supported his factory's workpeople: "He sought and laboured for their comfort in every way", and he also suggested a plan to create allotment gardens for mill hands.

He was almost in the foremost rank in helping forward any public work, and striving to place his native town in a position worthy of its importance ... he was truly a goodly flower.