William Churchill, philologist, ethnologist, and writer, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1859. After graduating from Yale in 1882, he taught school for a year and then left for an extended trip to Australia and the South Pacific. When he returned to the United States, he worked as a librarian in San Francisco. In 1891, he became an editor of the Brooklyn Daily Times. He was appointed United States consul-general to Samoa (1896-1899) where he pursued his interest in philology and ethnology. Churchill studied the Polynesian languages and collected data which formed the basis of "Polynesian Wanderings," published in 1910. Churchill also studied African languages and culture but less seriously than those of Polynesia. In 1908, he wrote that Africa "only accidentally holds my interest."

Churchill returned again to the United States and became an editor at The Sun in New York city (1902-1915). In 1915, he became an associate in what was called "primitive philology" at the Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C. During World War I, Churchill served as director of the division of foreign language publications of the Committee on Public Information. William Churchill died in 1920.