William Hamilton Row was born on 6 February 1907 in Weir, Kansas to Daisy Hamilton and Abraham C. Row. After graduating from Weir High School in 1924, he attended the University of Kansas for two years, from 1927 to 1929, and graduated with a B.S. in Education and a Teachers' Diploma. Row obtained his Master of Arts from the Teachers College of Columbia University in July 1932 after taking classes for three summers. He also attended Kansas State Teachers College, Kansas City School of Law, University of Colorado, Northwestern University, and Tulsa University for various lengths of time, but never long enough to earn a degree. On 17 August 1935, he married Hazel Ann Howell of Pittsburgh, Kansas, who had attended Kansas State Teachers College and would go on to teach high school for forty years. They had two children together: Howell and Rosalee Row.

Row taught at several high schools in Kansas before becoming the director of Speech Arts at Webster High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He remained in the position from 1939 until 1946, until he resigned in order to take a position at West Georgia College. Row had spent the three summers (1944, 1945, and 1946) working with the Georgia State Department of Education as a speech specialist for Mercer University and University of Georgia summer workshops. At West Georgia College, he was hired as an instructor in speech and dramatics, as well as the chairman of the Language, Literature, and Arts Division. Four years later, in 1950, he was promoted to Administrative Dean, and in 1954, he obtained his Doctor of Education degree from New York University. A copy of his dissertation, Training Rural Elementary Teachers: A Study to Determine the Opinions and Practices of the Teachers Who Have Experienced the Program for Training Rural Elementary Teachers at West Georgia College, Carrollton, Georgia, with Implications for the Improvement of That Program, can also be found in Special Collections.

Row was active in both the Carrollton community and the education community of Georgia. He was a member of the local Presbyterian congregation and the Carrollton Kiwanis Club, and he was a leader in the West Georgia District of the Boy Scouts. Among professional organizations, Row joined the Georgia Accrediting Commission, Georgia Education Association, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and Georgia Congress of Parents and Teachers.

When Irvine Sullivan Ingram retired as President of West Georgia College on 1 July 1960, he handpicked Row as his successor. He accepted the position and was president for only nine months before dying in an Atlanta hospital on 10 March 1961 after a three week-long illness. Ingram agreed to become acting president upon Row's death, without pay, until 1 July 1961, by which time a replacement, James Boyd, would be found. In 1962, a new building on campus was built (first used as a dormitory), and Ingram approved a resolution to name it after Row.