William Frederick Timmins was born May 23, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Harry Laverne Timmins (born 1887 in Wilsonville, Nebraska) married his mother, Pauline Sunbeam Beckford (born 1894 in Chicago) in Chicago in 1912 and had three children. His older sister Verna May was born in 1913 and his younger brother Harry was born in 1917. The family lived at 7017 Jeffrey Avenue in Chicago.William’s father was a celebrated magazine illustrator and co-owner with Frank H. Young (1888-1964) of a successful Chicago advertising agency called Young & Timmins Advertising Illustration Studios. In 1923 Timmins and Young co-founded the American Academy of Art in Chicago. His father's impressive career brought the family a prosperous and privileged lifestyle, which included pleasure trips to Paris and London. In 1927 the family moved to 71 Warwick Avenue in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, Illinois, and in 1929 the family traveled to France, after which they moved to New York City and lived in Forest Hills in Queens. Then in 1930 the family moved to 1055 Windsor Place in Pelham Manor, New York, a fashionable suburb of New York City. The area was popular with illustrators, such as Francis Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Charles LaSalle, Lawrence Toney, and Graves Gladney. William Timmins attended Pelham Memorial High School, where he contributed drawings to the French Club publication, Le Miroir, as well as the school year book, The Pelican. He was elected Treasurer of the Student Council. In June 1933 William graduated from high school, after which the family moved to 95 Garden Road West in nearby Mamaroneck, NY. In 1934 William began to commute by Metro North train to New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League on West 57th Street. He also took classes at the National Academy of Design on Fifth Avenue near 89th Street. The following year he moved to 21 North Chatsworth Avenue in Larchmont, NY, and began to study at the Grand Central School of Art, located on the sky-lit top floor of Grand Central Station Terminal, the same station he used for his daily commute. That same year, at the young age of twenty, he began to sell pen and ink story illustrations as well as painted covers to NYC publishers of pulp magazines. During the second half of the 1930s his work appeared in Western Story, Dime Sports, Clues Detective Stories, Thrilling Western, and All Aces Magazine.On September 1, 1937, William married Marjorie Ardilla Vail (born April 16, 1918 in Greenwich, CT, and a graduate of Greenwich High School). Her father, Charles Vail, was born in 1886, and her mother, Vestah Gray, was born in 1897. The newlyweds spent their honeymoon on an ocean voyage to Paris. The couple moved to a home on Spectacle Lane in Wilton, Connecticut, an area that had become a popular artist community. He socialized with several artist neighbors, such as Benjamin Kimberly Prins (1902-1980), Tom Lovell (1909-1997), Richard Lyon (1913-2002), Al Parker (1906-1985), Rolf Klep (1904-1981), and R. G. Harris (1911-2007). On July 11, 1938 his sister, Verna May Timmins, married Donald Teague (1897-1991), one of America's top illustrators, a National Academy of Design academician, and a distinguished Artist Member of the Carmel Art Association. After the marriage they moved to California and settled in Carmel on the Monterey Peninsula. William’s son Gary William Timmins was born on July 18, 1939, followed by his daughter Dana Timmins on July 13, 1942.During the 1940s William’s cover illustrations appeared on the covers of many pulp magazines published by Street & Smith, including The Shadow, Clues Detective Stories, Wild West Weekly, and Astounding Science Fiction. Since he was married, twenty-eight years old, and with two young children, William did not serve in the military during World War II, but he did volunteer for the National Guard and served as Air Raid Warden for the Millstone section of Wilton, CT. In 1944 the family moved to Darien, CT. At first the artist worked in a rented studio in nearby Norwalk, CT, but after a while he converted a vacant family room into an art studio and worked from home. After the war he drew story illustrations for Family Circle and Liberty Magazine. In 1948 his father and his brother, Harry L. Timmins, Jr., moved to California to open a lithography business in Hollywood.During the 1950s William illustrated several books for children, published by Rand McNally, including Cowboys, Davy Crockett, Wild Bill Hickok, Robin Hood, Pony Express, Here Comes the Band, Super Circus, Emmett Kelly, Little Cub Scout, and Look! A Parade. In 1959 he contributed illustrations to The Boy Scout Handbook along with Norman Rockwell, Charles Waterhouse, and Donald N. Ross. His mother passed away in 1959, and his father died in 1963. In 1965 William, Marjorie, and their daughter Dana moved to Carmel, California, where they could live near his brother and sister. Like his father before him, he juried into the Carmel Art Association. In 1966 he retired from illustration and concentrated on painting landscapes and travel watercolors for fine art galleries in California, Arizona, and Nevada. His brother, Harry L. Timmins, Jr., opened an art gallery on Cedar Drive in Camarillo, CA, and handled paintings by his talented family members and friends. William Timmins died in San Francisco at the age of sixty-nine on January 9, 1985.