William Quan Judge was an Irish-American mystic, esotericist, and occultist, and one of the founders of the original Theosophical Society. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. When he was 13 years old, his family emigrated to the United States. He became a naturalized citizen of the USA at age 21 and passed the New York state bar exam, specializing in commercial law.

William Richard Cline is an American economist and a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

William Robert Cox was an American writer. He was a prolific writer of short stories and Western and Mystery novels mainly for the pulp and paperback markets. He wrote under at least six pseudonyms: Willard d'Arcy, Mike Frederic, John Parkhill, Joel Reeve, Roger G. Spellman and Jonas Ward.

William R. Forstchen is an American historian and author. A Professor of History and Faculty Fellow at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina, he received his doctorate from Purdue University.

William Robert Williams was an American politician from New York.

William Radice is a poet, writer and translator. He is the senior lecturer in Bengali in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His research area is in Bengali language and literature. He has translated several Bengali works, and works by Rabindranath Tagore and Michael Madhusudan Dutt.

William Rae Wilson (1772–1849) was a Scottish lawyer, landowner and travel writer.

Rev. William Ralph Churton, D.D. (1837–1897) was an Anglican churchman and author.

William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828–1889), known in his early life as William Ralston Shedden, who later adopted the additional surname of Ralston, was a noted British scholar and translator of Russia and Russian.

William Randolph Hearst Sr. was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by his wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.