William Ewart Napier was born in Woolwich, England in 1881. When he was five, his family moved to America, eventually residing in Brooklyn, N.Y.  Napier joined the Brooklyn Chess Club about the same time as Frank Marshall. The Brooklyn Chess Club was a strong club, boasting such members, besides Napier and Marshall, as Harry Nelson Pillsbury and Jackson Showalter.

 

He became the club champion when he was just 15.  At age 16 he played a match against Marshall, winning 7 games,  losing 1 and drawing 3.  As champion, he was sent to 1897 NY State Chess Association where he played, and defeated, Wilhelm Steinitz. Oddly enough, Napier married Harry Nelson Pillsbury's niece.

He played in relatively few tournaments and his career was very short. In the 1902 Monte Carlo Tournament, his first strong one, he won the Rothschild Brilliancy Prize for his game against Tchigorin. He also played at Hanover in 1902 with good results. In 1904 he played in the famous Cambridge Springs tournament where he lost to Lasker in a game renowned for it remarkable play by both sides. He won City of London Chess Club's National Tournament in 1904 and a few weeks later became the first British Chess Federation Champion by defeating Henry Atkins, a very strong player, in match play.
He drew a match with Meises, lost a match to Teichmann and beat Marshall in a Rice Gambit-themed match.

Then he just gave up competitive chess to become an insurance executive - president of the Scranton Life Insurance Company.

He lived until 1952.