William Allen Davis was born Wilber Albert Davis on 22 January 1916 to Albert and Blanche Edna Davis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1939, at the age of twenty-three, he legally changed his name to William Allen Davis. Having graduated from high school in 1934, Davis had completed one year of college and was working as a stock clerk when he was drafted to serve during World War II. His military was short as he was released with an honorable discharge in 1943.

While still a college student, Davis married Dulcie Violet Cuff, a telephone operator, in Rio, Wisconsin on 8 April 1950. The following year he earned his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and he received his Master of Science Applied Arts Degree in 1952. The photograph above shows Davis inking a lithography stone at the university in 1950.

According to the Boston Globe, Davis was a keeper of scientific exhibits at Harvard University Botanical Museum, Boston and before that he worked at the Phillips Academy at the R. S. Peabody Archeological Foundation. He co-authored with Richard Evans Schultes The Glass Flowers at Harvard, a book about the Ware Collection of Blaschka glass models of flowers.

William Allen Davis died on 10 February 1988 in Andover, Massachusetts.