WILLIAM E. LAIRD was born in New Jersey in September 20, 1878. 

William E. Laird first appears in the Camden City Directories in 1895. He was then working as a car inspector and living at 216 Stevens Street. The 1897 and 1898 editions list him at 209 Washington Street. The 1899 Directory shows him at 421 Pine Street. 

The 1900 Census shows William E. Laird, a brakeman for the Pennsylvania Railroad, his wife Edna and their 10 month-old son William E. Laird Jr. living at 243 Royden Street. A daughter, Gertrude, was born around 1903.

The 1906 City Directory shows William Laird, working as an ironworker, living at 248 Kaighn Avenue. By April of 1910 William Laird and his wife had separated. He was still boarding at 248 Kaighn Avenue and had gone back to work as a railroad brakeman.  

At some point after April of 1910, William E. Laird was appointed to the Camden Fire Department and assigned to Engine Company 7. The 1914 Camden City Directory 

indicates that he hand his wife had reunited and were then living at 1220 Hyde Park, a small street that runs south from Kaighn Avenue for a block between South 2nd and South 3rd Streets. 

William Laird broke his hip while fighting a fire in Collingswood, New Jersey on February 6, 1915. He recovered from his injury but apparently not sufficiently enough to return to the Fire Department. When he registered for the draft in September of 1918, he was working as a packer at the Welsbach gas mantle factory in Gloucester City. He had again separated from his wife, as his draft card states that he lived in Camden at 1231 Locust Street and that Edna Laird was living in Philadelphia. He was still living at that address when the census was taken in January of 1920, but had gone back to work for the railroad as a flagman. Edna Laird and the two children, William and Gertrude, were living in Gloucester City at that time.

William Laird moved to 910 South 6th Street by 1924, and was still working as a flagman, according to that year's City Directory. William E. Laird was still at that address and line of work in 1927. He does not appear in the 1929 Camden City Directory or in the 1930 Census. Fire Department records show him living at 734 Market Street in Camden in 1931. He was seriously injured in an automobile accident in June of 1932.