William Henry Joyner was born on September 16, 1867, in Enfield, North Carolina. Joyner served as a mayor of Garysburg (Northampton County) for nineteen years, as legislator elected in 1916 and 1932, and as a member of the state prison board and the state board of agriculture, among other, more local, offices. In 1917, he served on a joint legislative committee charged with investigating the condition of the state's prison system. Joyner died in Garysburg on December 2, 1933.