William was baptized on December 26, 1843 at St. John the Baptist Church, Skilgate, Somerset, where his mother was visiting with other members of the Luxton family for the Christmas holiday.

In November 1872, he along with John A. Kenny, a retired farmer from Ontario, Luxton started a pro-Liberal weekly newspaper, the Manitoba Free Press.

As a politician, Luxton's main goals in 1876 were prohibition, the establishment of a secular school system and the abolition of French as an official language in Manitoba.

It led to him being deposed as owner and editor of the Free Press in 1893 when he missed the repayment deadline of a loan he had taken in 1888 from Sir Donald Alexander Smith.

Another son, George, joined his father at the Globe as a photographer, and went on to be a prominent garden columnist in the local media with a park named after him.