He taught philosophy and ancient languages as well as science and math at several Latter-day Saints (LDS) institutions including Brigham Young University in the early 20th century.

His brother Ralph Vary Chamberlin would go on to become a noted biologist and would later become embroiled with William in controversy regarding the teaching of evolution.

William and Amelia had six children: Max Cannon, Hester, Martha, Paul, Frances, and Luke.

The Chamberlin and Peterson brothers, while devout Mormons, actively sought to increase the intellectual atmosphere of the university and community, facilitating discussion and debates on evolution and the Bible, and sought to convey that evolutionary ideas and Mormon theology were not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary.

The four instructors' courses were popular among students and other faculty, but university and church officials accused the professors of promoting heretical views, and in 1911 offered the Petersons and Ralph Chamberlin a choice: alter their teachings or lose their jobs.

The students of BYU overwhelmingly supported the professors, and a petition of support signed by at least 80% of the student body was submitted to BYU officials and reprinted in the Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City's largest secular newspaper.

[1][6][9] In 1917 Chamberlin began a PhD with Harvard philosopher Ralph Barton Perry, but left after one year due to poor health and financial troubles.

Other LDS scholars Hutchinson grouped into this approach include Lowell L. Bennion, Sterling McMurrin, and John L.

[7]: 142 Students of Chamberlin's included E. E. Ericksen,[1] who later become chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Utah and who is known as a leading figure in LDS intellectual history.