Lord Listowel was the eldest son of Richard Hare, 4th Earl of Listowel, and Freda, daughter of Francis Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone, 2nd Baron Derwent. John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham, a Conservative Cabinet minister, was his younger brother.^[1] He was educated at Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford, Magdalene College, Cambridge and King's College London (PhD, 1932).

Listowel served as a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps. He entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in November 1931, by right of the United Kingdom peerage of Baron Hare, and made his maiden speech in March of the following year.^[2] He was a Labour Party whip in the Lords from 1941 to 1944, and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords and Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma from 1944 to 1945. ^{[citation needed]}

When Labour came to power in 1945 under Clement Attlee, Listowel was appointed Postmaster General, a post he held until April 1947, and was briefly Minister of Information between February and March 1946, when the office was abolished.

In April 1947 he entered the cabinet as Secretary of State for India and Burma. Prime Minister Clement Attlee, however, made all the government's major decisions regarding India.^[3] After India gained independence in August 1947, his cabinet title became Secretary of State for Burma, working from the Burma Office, but in January 1948 this too was abolished, when Burma also gained independence, and Listowel then left the cabinet. He continued to serve under Attlee as Minister of State for Colonial Affairs from 1948 to 1950 and as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from 1950 to 1951. In 1957, he was appointed Governor-General of Ghana, a post he held until 1960, when Ghana became a Republic. He was later Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords between 1965 and 1976. He remained an active member of the House of Lords, speaking for the last time in July 1995, aged 88.^[2]

Apart from his career in national politics, Lord Listowel was a member of the London County Council for East Lewisham between 1937 and 1946, and for Battersea North between 1952 and 1957. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1946^[4] and a GCMG in 1957.^[5]

Lord Listowel married three times.^[6] Firstly he married Judith, daughter of Raoul de Marffy-Mantuana, on 24 July 1933. They had one daughter:

• Lady Deirdre Elisabeth Mary Freda Hare (born 13 February 1935), married firstly John Norton, 7th Baron Grantley and then, after his death, Ian Curteis.

Lord and Lady Listowel were divorced in 1945. He married secondly Stephanie Sandra Yvonne Wise on 1 July 1958. They also had one daughter:

• Lady Fiona Eve Akua Hare (born 24 February 1960)

They were divorced in 1963 and on 4 October 1963 Lord Listowel married thirdly Pamela Mollie Day. They had two sons and one daughter:

• Francis Michael Hare, 6th Earl of Listowel (born 28 June 1964)
• Lady Diana France Hare (born 7 December 1965)
• Hon Timothy Patrick Hare (born 1966)

Pamela, Countess Listowel, lives in Hampstead.^[7]

Lord Listowel died in March 1997, aged 90, and was succeeded by his elder son from his third marriage, Francis.^[1]

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by the Earl of Listowel
• Earl of Listowel's Memoirs; redrice.com. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
• Newspaper clippings about William Hare, 5th Earl of Listowel in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW