William Hancock was born in Lurgan, Co. Armagh, the son of an Irish father and an English mother. After studying at Queen’s College, Belfast (1862-66), he worked in the linen industry, and in 1874 joined the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service (presided over from 1863 to 1908 by his fellow-Ulsterman Robert Hart). During the next 34 years he served in a number of posts, including Peking, Tamsui (Formosa), Hankow, Mengtsz, Samshui, Chungking and Shanghai, ending his career as a Commissioner of Customs. In private life he was a keen and enterprising botanist, travelling in mainland China, Formosa, French Indo-China, the Sandwich Islands and South America in pursuit of specimens, and donating his collections to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Linnean Society.