Born on the Isle of Wight, the son of a Ryde head-teacher, Ernie Williams managed to become an amateur footballer in the professional game, while launching his own teaching career. Having qualified in Winchester where he gained his football colours and made a solitary appearance for Hampshire in the county championship, he was briefly on the books of First Division Arsenal who had been impressed by his performance playing for Hampshire v Kent at the old Manor Ground in Plumstead.

But he left, without getting a game, for Southern League Portsmouth, where he made spasmodic appearances at outside-left over the next three years. He then had half-a-dozen First Division outings with Chelsea and a similar number in a second spell at Portsmouth, during which he represented the county and was twice capped as an amateur. After all of which, Ernie joined Southampton. His Saints career consisted of one Southern League appearance, before he retired to concentrate on his career teaching art in Portsmouth.

He served with the Hampshire Regiment during WW1 and then he taught at New Road School,d then Northern Parade, before becoming the Head at Hillside Council School in Wymering, while living in Purbrook. In 1943, while undertaking his war-time duties as a fire warden, he fell from a moving bus, hit his head on a kerb and died.