After tutoring at Queen's College, Edgbaston, and serving as Acting Warden of the College of the Ascension, Selly Oak, Kilpatrick became rector of Wishaw, Warwickshire, and a lecturer at Lichfield Theological College in 1942.
In 1287 his brother, Osbert de Bereford, a previous High Sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire, bought a property in Wishaw, and after his death a few years later the land was left to William.
The mast was felled by unknown vandals in November 2003 and subsequent pressure against plans to replace it led operator T-Mobile to abandon the site.
Smith was an experienced distiller, having already been manager of the Macallan, Glenlivet, Glenfarclas and Wishaw distilleries.
He was the son of William John Hamilton (Member of Parliament for Newport, Isle of Wight), son of William Richard Hamilton (Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office), son of the Venerable Anthony Hamilton (Archdeacon of Colchester), son of Alexander Hamilton, younger son of the aforementioned William Hamilton, 3rd of Wishaw.