Williiam Gladstone Wylie was the son of Hubert Wylie, who ran a slater company, and his wife Margaret, and also the nephew of William Gladstone Wylie, Mayor of South Shields 1907-08.

William joined his older brother, Hubert, at the High School in 1907 from Westoe Road school under a Corporation Scholarship.

When the scholarship ran out, school records show that he left "to learn farming". In fact he became a cowman on a farm in Humshaugh.

He initially served with the Northumberland Yeomenry as a Lance Corporal, but later moved to the Durham Light Infantry as a Lieutenant.

Whle serving in France, he was killed in action on 28-Mar-1918 and his name appears on the Arras Memorial, in Pas de Calais, France.