His father was captain and part owner of a vessel trading to the Mediterranean, which, during a voyage in 1794, was captured by the French and taken into a port, where he became a prisoner of war for two years.

In June 1816, while in command of The Brothers he was shipwrecked in the Kent Group, Bass Strait, and along with his crew of eight survived for 10 weeks on the wheat from their cargo that was washed up, before being rescued by the Spring.

A day or two later, in broken hilly country full of water-courses, they had great difficulty in finding a road for the loaded carts, deciding on 27 October to abandon them.

Hume shifted direction to the West then reached lower land at the future township of Broadford on the 12 December where they camped.

He led the party across the Dividing Range at Hume’s Pass, Wandong and on the 16th December, 1824 reached Port Phillip Bay at Bird Rock, Point Lillias adjacent to the future Geelong.

[10] Prior to this admission, Dr William Bland, who wrote the first book on the journey in 1831, invented the myth that Hovell made an error of one degree in longitude in order to protect him.

[12] On 25 March 1825 Governor Brisbane mentioned the discoveries of Hovell and Hume in a dispatch and said that he intended to send a vessel to Western Port to have it explored.

Hovell explored and reported on the land surrounding Western Port and to the north of it, and near the coast to the east at Cape Paterson he discovered "great quantities of very fine coal".

He died on 9 November 1875, and in 1877 his widow left the substantial sum of £6000 to the University of Sydney as a memorial of him, which was used to found the William Hilton Hovell lectureship on geology and physical geography.

In 1854 ill-feeling arose between Hume and Hovell which led to each write public documents with contradicting claims on the conduct of their expedition.

William Hovell Drive, between Matthew Flinders Avenue and John Edgcumbe Way, in Endeavour Hills, Victoria, is named after him.