Will Freshwater was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, England, on 1 November 1872. He attended school locally and then was apprenticed to a local cabinet maker at the age of 14. Freshwater became a Sunday school teacher and began accompanying preachers from the town's Independent Chapel into some of the villages in the area. He also became interested in evangelical work at this time.

On the completion of his apprenticeship, he went to Birmingham becoming a member of the city's Westminster Road Congregational Church in December 1894. He continued with Sunday school work and evangelised in lodging houses open-air meetings, and grew interested in the Church's missionary work which was fostered by the minister, the Rev. Charles Deeble. After discussing his ambition with Deeble, in 1899 Freshwater decided to become a full-time missionary, and in September 1899 he was admitted to Harley College, the headquarters of the East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions, in Bow, London.

His training continued until January 1902 when he passed the examination of the London Missionary Society, and then he transferred to Livingstone College for a course in tropical medicine. Freshwater left London on 30 April 1902 bound for Africa aboard the 'S.S. Matabele' and to a tour of duty at Mbereshi Mission Station, 1902-1907 (Mbereshi being in modern Zambia).

In 1908, during a brief return to England, Freshwater married Nancy (Annie) Swingler, a schoolteacher in Market Harborough. After a honeymoon in Edinburgh, he and his new wife returned to Africa and were stationed in Mporokoso, also in Zambia (then Northern Rodesia), and a first child - Bernard Bruce - was born at Kambole on 28 February 1909. During this tour of duty he was in charge of the Mission Station and was on the District Committee and the Translation Committee. After a brief return to Britain, the family was posted to Kambole in 1913 but when war broke out in 1914 they returned to Mbereshi which was further away from the border with German East Africa (territories which include modern Burundi, Rwanda, and mainland Tanzania) and any hostilities.

Freshwater studied the local language - Chibembe - and contributed to the development of Central Africa through the fields of linguistic studies, language and translation, carrying out much work between 1920 and 1925. He participated in the translation of the New Testament into Chibembe. Between 1925 and 1932, he was in charge of the Mission Station at Kafulwe in the Lake Mweru district.

After a brief spell in Britain again in 1932-1933, a period of ill-health followed his return to Africa and he collapsed in 1934 after a journey to Capetown. On recovery in Bulawayo, he was placed at Fort Rosebery where he continued with translation work on the Old Testament. However, he had to return to Capetown for an operation and in March 1936 he wrote his last few lines home to relations in Britain from the Andres Murray Missionary Home in Capetown. Will Freshwater died on 25 April 1936 and was buried in the Woltemade No.1 Cemetery, Capetown, South Africa. Nancy Freshwater returned to England in 1938 and died in 1959.