List of Famous people named William

Field Marshal William Gustavus Nicholson, 1st Baron Nicholson, was a British Army officer who served in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, the Mahdist War, the Third Anglo-Burmese War, the Second Boer War and the First World War. He became Chief of the Imperial General Staff and was closely involved in the reorganisation of the British Army in the early years of the 20th century.

William Compton, 1st Earl of Northampton, KG, known as 2nd Baron Compton from 1589 to 1618, was an English nobleman, peer, and politician.

Sir William James Lynton Blair is a retired British judge. He was previously a Queen's Counsel at London barristers' chambers 3 Verulam Buildings, specialising in domestic and international banking and finance law. He is the elder brother of former British prime minister Tony Blair.

William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire KB FRS was an English nobleman and politician, known as a royalist supporter.

William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. Widely considered to be one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance and one of the greatest British composers, he had a huge influence on composers both from his native England and those on the continent. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard, and consort music. Although he produced sacred music for Anglican services, sometime during the 1570s he became a Roman Catholic and wrote Catholic sacred music later in his life.

William Beresford may refer to:

• William Beresford (politician) (1797–1883), British politician
• William Beresford, 1st Baron Decies (1743–1819), Anglican Archbishop of Tuam, great-uncle of the above
• William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford (1768–1854), British Army general, nephew of the above
• William Horsley-Beresford, 3rd Baron Decies (1811–1893), Anglo-Irish peer
• Lord William Beresford (1847–1900), Irish Victoria Cross recipient, great-nephew of Viscount Beresford
• William Beresford, 4th Baron Decies (1865–1910), Anglo-Irish peer

William Pollard-Urquhart, was a 19th-century writer specialising in economic and policy questions of his day; he served as high sheriff of County Westmeath, and sat as Member of Parliament for the county.

Sir William Turner Thiselton-Dyer was a leading British botanist, and the third director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, PC is a British politician who served as a cabinet minister in the 1970s, and was one of the 'Gang of Four' of senior British Labour Party politicians who defected to form the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He subsequently helped to lead the SDP into the merger that formed the Liberal Democrats in 1988, and later served as that party's leader in the House of Lords between 1997 and 2001.

William Dodson Broyles Jr. is an American screenwriter, who has worked on the television series China Beach, and the films Apollo 13, Cast Away, Entrapment, Planet of the Apes, Unfaithful, The Polar Express, and Jarhead. He also assisted in the screenplay of Saving Private Ryan.