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William Hogarth was born on 25th March 1786 at Dodding Green, near Kendal, Westmorland, where his family had retained their faith and their lands through penal times.

William and his elder brother Robert (1785-1868) were educated from 1796 as church students at Crook Hall college, Durham, where students from the English secular college at Douai had settled in 1794 and which was removed to Ushaw in 1808. They both survived an outbreak of typhus at the college in the winter of 1808/09 during which five fellow students died, and were among the first to be ordained priests at Ushaw, Robert in March 1809 and William in the following December. Robert was engaged on pastoral work most of his life but William remained at Ushaw as professor, prefect general and procurator from 1811 to 1816, during which time Charles Newsham and Nicholas Wiseman were among his pupils.

In 1816 he was appointed chaplain to the Lawson family at Cliffe Hall, and when the Cliffe and Darlington missions were united in in 1824 he transferred to Darlington, where he passed the rest of his life. From 1838 he was Vicar General successively to bishops Briggs, Mostyn, and Riddell, Vicars Apostolic of the Northern District. In 1848 he succeeded Bishop Riddell as Vicar Apostolic and was consecrated Bishop of Samosata, in partibus infidelium, at Ushaw on 24th August. When the hierarchy was restored by Pius IX he was translated to the new see of Hexham, renamed Hexham and Newcastle in 1861.

Throughout his life he retained a close interest in the affairs of Ushaw College. He supported his friend Charles Newsham, fifth president, in his plans for its major expansion between 1848 and 1858 and advocated its independence from episcopal control. He was older than most of his episcopal colleagues and while not aloof from ecclesiastical politics he preferred to concentrate his energies on promoting the interests of his diocese, rather in the spirit of the former Vicars Apostolic - it is said that every church or chapel had been either built or enlarged under his management. Even so, he was well respected by fellow bishops and was a friend and confidant of Nicholas Wiseman.

Although somewhat rough in manner, he was well known for his personal kindness and he generously supported all good causes in Darlington, irrespective of religious denomination. He built St Augustine's church in 1827 and was much loved by his own congregation, which he increased from 200 in 1824 to 3,000 in 1866. He was, above all, an energetic and capable administrator who established his new diocese on a sound footing. He died at Darlington on 29th January 1866, aged 79 years, and was buried at Ushaw college.