He was born in Axminster, Devon. Legal notices in the Sydney Morning Herald of 18 April 1947 indicate a "William Walter Giffard Tate" died at Randwick, Sydney, Australia on 29 December 1946 and the authoritative cricket website CricketArchive has identified this as the same person.
Tate played as a middle-order batsman in a single match for Somerset in the county"s first season as a first-class team He scored 0 in the first innings and 19 in the second of the match against the Marylebone Cricket Club. Tate moved to Australia where he was an executive in a sugar refining group based in Adelaide.
