William Ross was from Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was well known as a baseball and rugby player, but was most renowned as a track star. Ross was one of Canada’s greatest 880-yard runners. He established an 880-yard record in 1908 at the Wanderer’s Grounds with a time of 1 minute and 59 seconds, a record that was not broken until 1955.

Ross has also held the Maritime half-mile race record in the 1920’s. After his track and field career ended, Dr. Ross worked for the Nova Scotia government in the area of drug and alcohol dependence.