William Thomas Beckford was an English novelist, art critic, planter and politician. He was reputed at one stage to be England's richest commoner. The son of William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton, he served as a Member of Parliament for Wells in 1784–1790 and Hindon in 1790–1795 and 1806–1820. Beckford is best known for writing the 1786 Gothic novel Vathek, for building the Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire and Beckford's Tower in Bath, and for his extensive art collection.

William Beloe (1756 – April 11, 1817) was an English divine and miscellaneous writer.

William Bemrose (1831–1908) was a writer on wood-carving and pottery, director of a printing business and Royal Crown Derby. He wrote and published a biography of Joseph Wright of Derby.

William Benjamin Smith was a professor of mathematics at Tulane University, best known as a proponent of the Christ myth theory.

William Bingley was an English cleric, naturalist and writer.

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his "prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself".

William Campbell Gault (1910–1995) was an American writer. He wrote under his own name, and as Roney Scott and Will Duke, among other pseudonyms.

William Canton was a British poet, journalist and writer, now best known for his contributions to children's literature. These include his series of three books, beginning with The Invisible Playmate, written for his daughter Winifred Vida (1891-1901). The book was read by the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing on New Year's Eve 1895. In his lifetime Canton was known for his use of recent archeological evidence of prehistory in his poetry.

William Carew Hazlitt, known professionally as W. Carew Hazlitt, was an English lawyer, bibliographer, editor and writer. He was the son of the barrister and registrar William Hazlitt, a grandson of the essayist and critic William Hazlitt, and a great-grandson of the Unitarian minister and author William Hazlitt. William Carew Hazlitt was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1861.

William Carleton was an Irish writer and novelist. He is best known for his Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, a collection of ethnic sketches of the stereotypical Irishman.