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William Smeaton was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on October 24, 1856, the youngest son of a clergyman and university professor. He was educated at Edinburgh University and intended to enter the clergy himself but abandoned his religious studies for personal reasons. He left for New Zealand in 1878 where he taught school for several years. Smeaton then travelled to Australia where he spent ten years as a journalist before finally returning to Britain in 1893. Moving to Edinburgh, he began writing Australian life and literature for various publications in Victorian Britain popularly known as the "Famous Scots Series". He also began writing several adventure and children's fiction novels such as By Adverse Winds (1895), Our Laddie (1897) and A Mystery Of The Pacific (1899).

Smeaton became associated with the Dent publishing firm during this time and worked with JM Dent on the editorial work for the Temple Classics and the Everyman Library series. In addition, he also edited books on Scottish antiquities and English literature including works by William Shakespeare, Thomas Dekker, John Ford and others. His The Life and Works of William Shakespeare (1911) was especially popular and was reprinted several times. He died in Edinburgh on March 31, 1914.