Bill Alexander, the son of a carpenter, was born in Hampshire on 13th June, 1910. He studied at Reading University where he obtained a chemistry degree. After graduating he became an industrial chemist.

Alexander joined the Communist Party and played an active role in the campaign against Oswald Mosley and the National Union of Fascists during the 1930s.

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War Alexander decided to join the International Brigades fighting against the Nationalist Army in Spain. Alexander, a member of the British Battalion, arrived at the battlefront early in 1937. He took part at the battle at Brunete where after a fortnight the battalion was down to 42 out of an original strength of 300.

Alexander, now a political commissar, also played a prominant part in the fighting at Teruel in January 1938. Two months later Alexander took over as commander of the battalion, but shortly afterwards he was wounded in the shoulder and invalidid back home.

In 1939 Alexander joined the British Army but was refused a commission. The matter was raised in the House of Commons and as a result he was sent to Sandhurst Academy. During the Second World War he served in North Africa, Italy and Germany and reached the rank of captain.

After the war Alexander became a full time organiser for the Communist Party in Liverpool