William Alexander Webb, president of Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of Rev. Richard Stanford and Jennie (Clegg) Webb, was born in Durham, North Carolina, July 30, 1867.  The father was a graduate of the University of North Carolina, and for thirty-four years was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, south, in the North Carolina and Western North Carolina conferences, serving during the civil war as chaplain of the Forty-fourth North Carolina Regiment, Confederate States army.  His mother was a student in Greensboro Female College at the time the institution was burned during the civil war.
President Webb comes of a distinguished family of educators.  His uncles, Messrs. W. R. and J. M. Webb, are the founders and principals of the Webb School, now located at Bell Buckle, Tennessee.  This institution is generally regarded as one of the leading preparatory schools in the country.  After spending four years in this institution, William A. Webb entered Vanderbilt University in 1887 and was graduated four years later with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.  He was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, won the Owen prize medal in moral philosophy, was chairman of the literary committee of "The Comet," the college annual, and in 1903 was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa.  During his senior year he was assistant in English under Dr. Baskervill, and the next year was made a fellow in that department.  After three years of teaching English and Latin in the Webb School, he spent two years as graduate student in the University of Leipzig.  In 1887 he became principal of Central College Academy, in Fayette, Missouri, and two years later was elected professor of English in Central College.  In 1903 he was granted a leave of absence and spent the year with his family in Berlin.  He matriculated in the University of Berlin.
Professor Webb prepared the paper on local government in North Carolina for the volume in the Johns Hopkins University studies on local government in the south and southwest, edited by Edward W. Bemis, his professor in Vanderbilt University.  He also prepared the study of Richard Malcolm Johnston for the second volume of Southern Writers, by Professor William M. Baskervill.  In the summer of 1899 and 1900 he taught English in the Texas-Colorado Chautauqua of Boulder, Colorado.
In April, 1907, he was elected president of Central College, after having served one year as acting president during the leave of absence of President J. C. Morris.  During his administration, the college made steady progress in all departments.  He was particularly interested in raising the standards of scholarship and in building up the departments of college instruction.  The courses of instruction were enlarged and enriched; the library was increased by several thousand volumes; the endowment funds were materially enlarged; the physical plant was improved, and the student attendance showed a gratifying growth both in numbers and quality.
President Webb is a member of the Southern Educational Association, and of the Religious Education Association.  Before these bodies he has presented papers which have been published in their proceedings.  Hs is also a member of the Commission of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.  This commission is appointed quadrennially by the bishops of the church, and is intrusted [sic] with the task of formulating standards for the classification of the several academies, colleges and universities under the auspices of the Southern Methodist church.  In 1911-12-13 he was professor of English literature in the summer school of the University of Colorado.  In 1911 Wofford College conferred the degree of Doctor of Literature upon President Webb.  On August 5, 1913, he was elected president of Randolph-Macon Woman's College and entered upon the discharge of the duties of that position in September.
Dr. Webb married, January 31, 1899, Mary Lee Clary, of Bell Buckle, Tennessee, who was educated at the Webb School and at Price's College for Women, in Nashville, Tennessee.  They have four children.
Source:  Encyclopedia of Virginia Biographies - Vol. IV. Transcribed by Chris Davis