Born in South Wales, William Gould gained an honours degree in Latin from University College, Swansea, in 1969. Working for the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects at Swansea gave him a training in phonetics, and he entered reference-book publishing in 1971 as a pronunciation transcription editor with Laurence Urdang Associates (now Market House Books). He was one of the team that prepared the acclaimed Collins English Dictionary, now in its fifth edition. William went on to draft dictionary definitions and etymologies and also wrote articles for other Urdang projects.

From 1977 to 1984, William was an editor at the London office of World Book Encyclopedia, writing and commissioning articles on subjects relating to the UK and the Irish Republic. In 1986, after a spell at the Central Office of Information, he joined Encyclopaedia Britannica as a senior editor on its junior multivolume set Children's Britannica. He also served as editor of the Children's Britannica Yearbook.

Since becoming freelance in 1989, William has built on his links with Britannica and World Book and has also contributed to the Kingfisher Children's Science Encyclopedia, Philip's Concise Encyclopedia and Helicon’s Hutchinson Almanac. His own books include the series Business in Action for the children's publisher Cherrytree and Harrap's English Punctuation and Hyphenation.

Since 1982, William has also made occasional forays into music journalism and criticism. A former concert reviewer for local newspapers in Bromley and Croydon, he has also written for the magazine Musical Opinion and worked on newsletters for the charity Making Music, the National Federation of Music Societies. He is in demand as a writer of concert programme notes.