William Tail was born on 25 March 1866, at 6 Greenhill Gardens in south-east Edinburgh, the second son of
Peter Guthrie Tait and his wife, Margaret Porter. He was named after his maternal uncle,
William Archer Porter. He was educated at
Edinburgh Academy. From 1881, he studied engineering at
Edinburgh University under Prof
Fleeming Jenkin, graduating BSc in 1885. He was then apprenticed for a year at Brown Brothers Engineering on Broughton Road in Edinburgh. In 1886/7 he did work creating the
Lanarkshire and Ayrshire Railway. In 1887 he was articled to Sir
John Wolfe Barry then to
Henry Marc Brunel. Here he worked on the foundations of
Tower Bridge and on the
Barry Docks. He continued with Wolfe Barry for three years after his articles were complete, and accompanied him on several court hearings He returned to Scotland in 1891 as assistant engineer to the
Glasgow Subway project under
Charles de Neuville Forman. In August 1894 he joined
Leslie and Reid alongside
Alexander Leslie to replace
Robert Carstairs Reid. His main project was
Talla Reservoir on the
Talla Water in the
Scottish Borders which played a major role in serving
Edinburgh and allowing its expansion. In 1898, he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin,
Charles Alexander Stevenson,
George Barclay and
John Sturgeon Mackay. He received an honorary doctorate (DSc) from the
University of Edinburgh in 1910. He served as Vice President to the Society from 1921 to 1924. In 1910, he had offices at 72 George Street in
Edinburgh's First New Town and lived at 38
George Square. Tait died in
Edinburgh on 23 June 1929. He is buried with his parents and siblings in
st John's churchyard at the west end of
Princes Street in Edinburgh. The grave lies on one of the lower eastern terraces, behind a grey granite Celtic cross to his brother,
Frederick Guthrie Tait. He bequeathed his collection of legal books to the library at
One Great George Street in
London. ==Family==