Career
Foreign his many years as editor-publisher of the Press-Telegram, he received the nickname "Mr. Long Beach".
Prisk was the second son of William and Mary (Hosking) Prisk, natives of Camborne, Cornwall, England, who settled in Grass Valley, California, United States, where his father was a miner. He was born in Grass Valley.
He became a naturalized United States citizen in 1869.
Three years after his death in Long Beach, he was selected to the California Newspaper Publishers Association"s Newspaper Hall of Fame. The William F. Prisk Elementary School in the Long Beach Unified School District is named in his honor.