Born in Brentford, Middlesex, William Croxford studied art during the early 1870s, with a dated work placing him in Scheveningen, Holland, in 1875. He became a regular visitor to Cornwall, giving consecutive sending-in addresses as St Leonards on Sea (1896), Hastings (1889), St Ives (1892) and Headlands, Newquay (1894-96). He continued to paint scenes of fishermen and harbours throughout Cornwall into the late 1880s, exhibiting his work in the London galleries of the RA, RBA, RI and the Fine Art Society. A number of paintings of Polperro were included in these. Wood comments that he sometimes signed as W Croxford Edwards, who is given a separate entry with the same information in Victorian Painters.

William moved to Newquay in 1894, opening a gallery and studio in Bank Street. His cousin Thomas Croxford visited him there a number of times, and together they painted the Cornish scenery. William continued to paint coastal and countryside scenes until his death there in 1926. His daughter Grace Butterworth nee Croxford was an accomplished miniature painter.

Thomas Swainson CROXFORD was also a landscape painter from Brentford, who exhibited Cornish scenes. He travelled widely and also abroad.