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6c1b3d36999c2413a7f1169866df5500 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Chandler-Roberts-Austen | Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen | Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen
Sir William Chandler Roberts-Austen, (born March 3, 1843, Kennington, Surrey, Eng.—died Nov. 22, 1902, London), English metallurgist noted for his research on the physical properties of metals and their alloys. He was knighted in 1899.
As professor of metallurgy at the Royal School... |
5a51568ada596b691c2c767b119671b9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Coddington | William Coddington | William Coddington
William Coddington, (born 1601, Boston, Lincolnshire, Eng.—died Nov. 1, 1678, Rhode Island [U.S.]), colonial governor and religious dissident who founded Newport, Rhode Island, in 1639.
Coddington, an assistant in the Massachusetts Bay Company, migrated to the New England colony in 1630. He settled... |
6cd3213e9851b12e2b5cd261b8492553 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Crockford | William Crockford | William Crockford
William Crockford, (born 1775, London—died May 24, 1844, London), founder and proprietor of a famous English gambling establishment.
Crocker was the son of a fishmonger, and he himself practiced the trade in his youth. After winning a large sum of money (£100,000, according to one story) either at c... |
1e54483b9f3f55351304d056b0feae0e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Croft | William Croft | William Croft
William Croft, (baptized December 30, 1678, Nether Ettington, Warwickshire, England—died August 14, 1727, Bath, Somerset), English organist and composer of church music in the Baroque style.
Educated under John Blow, he was organist of St. Anne’s, Soho (1700–12), of the Chapel Royal from 1707, and of Wes... |
6731bcc3fc74eedc96f881b62fa52bdc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Cushing | William Cushing | William Cushing
William Cushing, (born March 1, 1732, Scituate, Mass. [U.S.]—died Sept. 13, 1810, Scituate), American jurist who was the first appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Cushing graduated from Harvard in 1751, began studying law, and was admitted to the bar in 1755. After working as a county official, he su... |
a73ca76ca371f774f31bc60fe64f16ed | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Dalton | William Dalton | William Dalton
Western history: Grattan (“Grat”; 1861–92), William (“Bill”; 1863–94), Robert (“Bob”; 1870–92), and Emmett (1871–1937). Their older cousins were the outlaw Younger brothers.
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79009ac0e4708bcb3362f13bb6aec672 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Dampier | William Dampier | William Dampier
William Dampier, (born August 1651, East Coker, Somerset, Eng.—died March, 1715, London), buccaneer who later explored parts of the coasts of Australia, New Guinea, and New Britain for the British Admiralty. A keen observer of natural phenomena, he was, in some respects, a pioneer in scientific explor... |
32bc0dac530a23761e9d6b3135104c03 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Davison | William Davison | William Davison
William Davison, (born c. 1541—died Dec. 21, 1608, Stepney, London), secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England, chiefly remembered for his part in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Of Scottish descent (by his own account), he went to Scotland as secretary to the English ambassador, Henry Killigrew... |
70cb522c4b425f91480d47772cc8bd01 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Dean-Howells | William Dean Howells | William Dean Howells
William Dean Howells, (born March 1, 1837, Martins Ferry, Ohio, U.S.—died May 11, 1920, New York City), U.S. novelist and critic, the dean of late 19th-century American letters, the champion of literary realism, and the close friend and adviser of Mark Twain and Henry James.
The son of an itiner... |
a0a73db43edfcc8b4f37079e2b1fe1c5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Donald-Hamilton | William Donald Hamilton | William Donald Hamilton
William Donald Hamilton, byname W.D. Hamilton, (born August 1, 1936, Cairo, Egypt—died March 7, 2000, London, England), British naturalist and population geneticist who found solutions to two of Darwin’s outstanding problems: the evolution of altruism and the evolution of sexual reproduction. H... |
9dba6145a055f37ed5ce657fe6418621 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Duddell | William Duddell | William Duddell
…by purely electric means was William Duddell’s singing arc, in which the rate of pulsation of an exposed electric arc was determined by a resonant circuit consisting of an inductor and a capacitor. Demonstrated in London in 1899, Duddell’s instrument was controlled by a keyboard, which enabled the play... |
36ec02736096ff50be6caed139c2cb52 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-E-Connolly | William E. Connolly | William E. Connolly
…by the American political theorist William E. Connolly. Pluralist theorists of the 1950s and ’60s had described the American political system as one in which politics provided an arena in which diverse groups can each equally advocate for their preferred policies, eventually leading to consensus. C... |
4aa5f67c1bd92460c3abcb847ee53973 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-E-Dodge | William E. Dodge | William E. Dodge
William E. Dodge, in full William Earl Dodge, (born Sept. 4, 1805, Hartford, Conn., U.S.—died Feb. 9, 1883, New York, N.Y.), American merchant, cofounder of Phelps, Dodge & Company, which was one of the largest mining companies in the United States for more than a century.
Descended from early New En... |
7b1094d2e92f82101d22f30356741326 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-E-Miller | William E. Miller | William E. Miller
…his vice presidential running mate, William E. Miller, were decisively defeated in the election (November 3); they carried only Arizona and five states in the Deep South.
William E. Miller of New York as his running mate. Goldwater’s nomination was not without controversy, since many Republican moder... |
174e1e09f70fa3928452bf0c11de3790 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-E-Moerner | W.E. Moerner | W.E. Moerner
W.E. Moerner, in full William Esco Moerner, (born 1953, Pleasanton, California, U.S.), American chemist who won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work with single-molecule spectroscopy, which paved the way for later work in single-molecule microscopy by American physicist Eric Betzig. Moerner and... |
9a4198ef8435a6e83f1f3576c70e8250 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Edward-Forster | William Edward Forster | William Edward Forster
William Edward Forster, (born July 11, 1818, Bradpole, Dorset, Eng.—died April 5, 1886, London), British statesman noted for his Education Act of 1870, which established in Great Britain the elements of a primary school system, and for his term (1880–82) as chief secretary for Ireland, where hi... |
c62f782cd2adf1bc1a8b5f37753ff5ac | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Elphinstone | William Elphinstone | William Elphinstone
William Elphinstone, (born 1431, Glasgow, Scot.—died Oct. 25, 1514, Edinburgh), Scottish bishop and statesman, founder of the University of Aberdeen.
Elphinstone was probably the son of a priest and was educated at the University of Glasgow. He was ordained priest (c. 1456) and after four years as... |
8a6e554082f5d0503380beb01a62a7cd | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Everson | William Everson | William Everson
William Everson, in full William Oliver Everson, byname Brother Antoninus, (born Sept. 10, 1912, Sacramento, Calif., U.S.—died June 3, 1994, Santa Cruz, Calif.), American Roman Catholic poet whose works record a personal search for religious vision in a violent, corrupt world.
Raised by Christian Scie... |
6d3c66192c7672d52168a5132e3563ac | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-F-Friedman | William F. Friedman | William F. Friedman
William Friedman was still an infant when his family immigrated to the United States; he studied genetics at Cornell University (B.S., 1914). Elizebeth Smith majored in English at Hillsdale (Michigan) College (B.A., 1915). They met at the Riverbank Laboratories (Geneva, Illinois), where they both ev... |
d724572ac404f5a6c54a44c1b9fe8f2d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-F-Sharpe | William F. Sharpe | William F. Sharpe
William F. Sharpe, in full William Forsyth Sharpe, (born June 16, 1934, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.), American economist who shared the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990 with Harry M. Markowitz and Merton H. Miller. Their early work established financial economics as a separate field of stu... |
ff8aafd887e81420fbcb24d49e35a7de | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Faithorne | William Faithorne | William Faithorne
William Faithorne, (born c. 1616, London, Eng.—died May 13, 1691, London), English engraver and portrait draftsman noted for his excellent line engravings.
A pupil of the painter Robert Peake the Elder and of the engraver John Payne, Faithorne was captured during the English Civil Wars, imprisoned, ... |
022c65eb78dbd4c7091f32260e4b17f8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Ferguson | William Ferguson | William Ferguson
Cooper and William Ferguson organized protest against Australia’s sesquicentennial celebrations in January 1938: “There are enough of us remaining to expose the humbug of your claims, as White Australians, to be a civilised, progressive, kindly and humane nation.”
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dc1a83b727d50dcd000e9d256c3fe9fb | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Fielding-Ogburn | William Fielding Ogburn | William Fielding Ogburn
William Fielding Ogburn, (born June 29, 1886, Butler, Georgia, U.S.—died April 27, 1959, Tallahassee, Florida), American sociologist known for his application of statistical methods to the problems of the social sciences and for his introduction of the idea of “cultural lag” in the process of ... |
101fa8f8563bdbcb10a863cedea9aafd | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Fothergill-Cooke | Sir William Fothergill Cooke | Sir William Fothergill Cooke
Sir William Fothergill Cooke, (born May 4, 1806, Ealing, Middlesex, Eng.—died June 25, 1879, Surrey), English inventor who worked with Charles Wheatstone in developing electric telegraphy.
Cooke’s attendance at a demonstration of the use of wire in transmitting messages led to his experim... |
0b95072562df41c475e77dc5965cec30 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Fox-American-film-producer | William Fox | William Fox
William Fox, original name Wilhelm Fried, (born Jan. 1, 1879, Tulchva, Hung.—died May 8, 1952, New York, N.Y., U.S.), American motion-picture executive who built a multimillion-dollar empire controlling a large portion of the exhibition, distribution, and production of film facilities during the era of si... |
aeccda950d73b04fbb69e4cb5e1681fe | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Froude | William Froude | William Froude
William Froude, (born Nov. 28, 1810, Dartington, Devon, Eng.—died May 4, 1879, Simonstown, S.Af.), English engineer and naval architect who influenced ship design by developing a method of studying scale models propelled through water and applying the information thus obtained to full-size ships. He di... |
0b45507268d4a44c712322f356256d8f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-G-Kaelin-Jr | William G. Kaelin, Jr. | William G. Kaelin, Jr.
William G. Kaelin, Jr., (born 1957, New York City, New York), American scientist known for his studies of tumour suppressor genes and proteins and for his role in identifying the molecular mechanisms that allow cells to sense and adapt to changes in oxygen levels. His discoveries concerning cell... |
2b304e68ea1226a52cfb26d9da96548b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Ged | William Ged | William Ged
William Ged, (born 1690, Edinburgh, Scot.—died Oct. 19, 1749, Leith, Midlothian), Scottish goldsmith who invented (1725) stereotyping, a process in which a whole page of type is cast in a single mold so that a printing plate can be made from it. His work was opposed by typefounders and compositors, and th... |
933f334af6abfb387866329f5fbe2fa7 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-George-Armstrong-Baron-Armstrong-of-Cragside | William George Armstrong, Baron Armstrong | William George Armstrong, Baron Armstrong
William George Armstrong, Baron Armstrong, also called (1859–87) Sir William George Armstrong, (born Nov. 26, 1810, Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, Eng.—died Dec. 27, 1900, Cragside, Northumberland), British industrialist and engineer who invented high-pressure hydraulic... |
7f6bef941ed5d9ff522dd8a61c60e44e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Gilbert-Grace | William Gilbert Grace | William Gilbert Grace
William Gilbert Grace, (born July 18, 1848, Downend, Gloucestershire, Eng.—died Oct. 23, 1915, London), greatest cricketer in Victorian England, whose dominating physical presence, gusto, and inexhaustible energy made him a national figure. He evolved the modern principles of batting and achieve... |
2c78f8697b201d2f4faeab9648dc2482 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Hamilton-of-Gilbertfield | William Hamilton of Gilbertfield | William Hamilton of Gilbertfield
William Hamilton of Gilbertfield, (born c. 1665, Ladyland, Ayr, Scot.—died May 24, 1751, Latrick, Lanark), Scottish writer whose vernacular poetry is among the earliest in the 18th-century Scottish literary revival.
After serving in the British Army, he retired to the life of a countr... |
4d4145cc86f6ff3a688cfa645ef0b4d5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Harvey | William Harvey | William Harvey
William Harvey, (born April 1, 1578, Folkestone, Kent, England—died June 3, 1657, London), English physician who was the first to recognize the full circulation of the blood in the human body and to provide experiments and arguments to support this idea.
English physician William Harvey was the first t... |
3e64d2910dd0c68358945f7978a12c2f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Hastings-Baron-Hastings | William Hastings, Baron Hastings | William Hastings, Baron Hastings
William Hastings, Baron Hastings, (born c. 1430—died 1483), English soldier and diplomat, a supporter of King Edward IV and the Yorkists against the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses.
Son of Sir Leonard Hastings (d. 1455), he was master of the mint and chamberlain of the royal hou... |
cb431ddebf493075391d181cbb67a362 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Drummond | William Henry Drummond | William Henry Drummond
William Henry Drummond, (born April 13, 1854, Mohill, County Leitrim, Ire.—died April 6, 1907, Cobalt, Ont., Can.), Irish-born Canadian writer of humorous dialect poems conveying a sympathetic but sentimentalized picture of the habitants, or French-Canadian farmers.
Drummond immigrated to Canad... |
4fbfe66010af64bbfa857bed3bb39f31 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Fox-Talbot | William Henry Fox Talbot | William Henry Fox Talbot
William Henry Fox Talbot, (born Feb. 11, 1800, Melbury Sampford, Dorset, Eng.—died Sept. 17, 1877, Lacock Abbey, near Chippenham, Wiltshire), English chemist, linguist, archaeologist, and pioneer photographer. He is best known for his development of the calotype, an early photographic process... |
177f3370e6cb767e7c5d2ecc6bd86278 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Holmes | William Henry Holmes | William Henry Holmes
William Henry Holmes, (born December 1, 1846, near Cadiz, Ohio, U.S.—died April 20, 1933, Royal Oak, Michigan), American archaeologist, artist, and museum director who helped to establish professional archaeology in the United States.
Holmes became interested in geology while serving as an artist ... |
9c2b6d77d90416386b6d5466abffcbd0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Webb | William Henry Webb | William Henry Webb
William Henry Webb, (born June 19, 1816, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Oct. 30, 1899, New York, N.Y.), American naval architect, one of the most versatile and successful shipbuilders of his day, who in 1889 established and endowed the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture at Glen Cove, N.Y. Webb began s... |
19b102e21c0258cb378e520c764c0113 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Welch | William Henry Welch | William Henry Welch
William Henry Welch, (born April 8, 1850, Norfolk, Conn., U.S.—died April 30, 1934, Baltimore), American pathologist who played a major role in the introduction of modern medical practice and education to the United States while directing the rise of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, to a leadi... |
d3b5fb1cd5051c3c68ae2da9c924e16d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Hogarth/Reputation-and-success | Reputation and success | Reputation and success
Hogarth eloped in March 1729 with Thornhill’s daughter Jane. The marriage proved stable and contented, though childless. A few months later Vertue remarked on his public success with “conversations,” and in the next few years these small paintings, which acknowledged a great debt to the early 18t... |
f52fa4e460c8ddbecf5bafbbaee6091e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Holden | William Holden | William Holden
William Holden, original name William Franklin Beedle, Jr., (born April 17, 1918, O’Fallon, Illinois, U.S.—found dead November 16, 1981, Santa Monica, California), American film star who perfected the role of the cynic who acts heroically in spite of his scorn or pessimism.
Beedle grew up in South Pasad... |
259ac3e00de506d9c37df0a2247b4211 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Huggins | William Huggins | William Huggins
William Huggins, in full Sir William Huggins, (born February 7, 1824, Stoke Newington, London, England—died May 12, 1910, London), English astronomer who revolutionized observational astronomy by applying spectroscopic methods to the determination of the chemical constituents of stars and other celesti... |
ecc410e96f1ffab48266458de079edc6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Hull | William Hull | William Hull
William Hull, (born June 24, 1753, Derby, Conn. [U.S.]—died Nov. 29, 1825, Newton, Mass., U.S.), U.S. soldier and civil governor of Michigan Territory (including present Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota) who was the subject of a celebrated court martial.
A graduate of Yale College, Hull joined ... |
37fcdd982784a358008e5a336de10060 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Inge | William Inge | William Inge
William Inge, in full William Motter Inge, (born May 3, 1913, Independence, Kan., U.S.—died June 10, 1973, Hollywood Hills, Calif.), American playwright best known for his plays Come Back, Little Sheba (1950; filmed 1952); Picnic (1953; filmed 1956), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize; and Bus Stop (1955;... |
0d4c3da0290b144fc4a3777d64879879 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-J-Hardee | William J. Hardee | William J. Hardee
William J. Hardee, (born Oct. 12, 1815, near Savannah, Ga., U.S.—died Nov. 6, 1873, Wytheville, Va.), Confederate general in the American Civil War (1861–65) who wrote a popular infantry manual used by both the North and the South.
An 1838 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., H... |
523473eb6c6aa1cf2f2e9e696a836657 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-J-Lederer | William J. Lederer | William J. Lederer
William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, published in 1958. A fictionalized account of Americans working in Southeast Asia, the book was notable chiefly for exposing many of the deficiencies in U.S. foreign-aid policy and for causing a furor in government circles. Eventually the uproar led…
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2dfa94a27cf9cdebcf97af1dd3900c98 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Jackson-Hooker | Sir William Jackson Hooker | Sir William Jackson Hooker
Sir William Jackson Hooker, (born July 6, 1785, Norwich, Norfolk, England—died August 12, 1865, Kew, Surrey), English botanist who was the first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew Gardens), near London. He greatly advanced the knowledge of ferns, algae, lichens, and fungi as well as ... |
ead56c4a0dad6e54bb833c90360f93d9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Joscelyn-Arkell | William Joscelyn Arkell | William Joscelyn Arkell
William Joscelyn Arkell, (born June 9, 1904, Highworth, Wiltshire, Eng.—died April 18, 1958, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire), paleontologist, an authority on Jurassic fossils (those dating from 200 million to 146 million years ago). Arkell taught at Trinity College, Cambridge University. His work i... |
7950835955d7cf98d78f930def93bb5c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Keighley | William Keighley | William Keighley
William Keighley, (born August 4, 1889, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died June 24, 1984, New York City, New York), American director whose films, most notably with James Cagney and Errol Flynn, ranged across a variety of genres.
While still a teenager, Keighley began acting onstage, and in 1915 he... |
e91793984638b9b8585c98487c866a73 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Kennedy | William Kennedy | William Kennedy
William Kennedy, in full William Joseph Kennedy, (born January 16, 1928, Albany, New York, U.S.), American author and journalist whose novels feature elements of local history, journalism, and supernaturalism.
Kennedy graduated from Siena College, Loudonville, New York, in 1949 and worked as a journal... |
79800d492fc5684ee4fa9946c3163654 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Kingdon-Clifford | William Kingdon Clifford | William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford, (born May 4, 1845, Exeter, Devon, England—died March 3, 1879, Madeira Islands, Portugal), British philosopher and mathematician who, influenced by the non-Euclidean geometries of Bernhard Riemann and Nikolay Lobachevsky, wrote “On the Space-Theory of Matter” (1876). H... |
4e10c6472a71e7a28af9c25582807328 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-L-Dayton | William L. Dayton | William L. Dayton
senator from California, with William L. Dayton, a former U.S. senator from New Jersey as his running mate. Former president Millard Fillmore served as the Know-Nothing nominee, with Andrew J. Donelson of Tennessee as his running mate; the Whigs united behind Fillmore rather than proposing their own c... |
3ff1670bf599cb9938fb97ef64d0bbac | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Light | William Light | William Light
William Light was responsible for the much-admired plan for the city of Adelaide, which was sited a short distance inland from the first landing on the shores of Gulf St. Vincent.
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645fb1a17fd2d7a6ee68315cff4bd6cb | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Makepeace-Thackeray/Legacy | Legacy of William Makepeace Thackeray | Legacy of William Makepeace Thackeray
In his own time Thackeray was regarded as the only possible rival to Dickens. His pictures of contemporary life were obviously real and were accepted as such by the middle classes. A great professional, he provided novels, stories, essays, and verses for his audience, and he toured... |
6756248a4655f97cd8e2c6f2df6a495a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Michael-Rossetti | William Michael Rossetti | William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti, (born September 25, 1829, London, England—died February 5, 1919, London), English art critic, literary editor, and man of letters, brother of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti.
Even as a child, William Michael was in many ways a contrast to his more flamboyant brot... |
5550bfd2ced90261563f2ca1b149d001 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Miller | William Miller | William Miller
William Miller, (born Feb. 15, 1782, Pittsfield, Mass., U.S.—died Dec. 20, 1849, Low Hampton, N.Y.), American religious enthusiast, leader of a movement called Millerism that sought to revive belief that the bodily arrival (“advent”) of Christ was imminent.
Miller was a farmer, but he also held such of... |
78ec1cdd837493ef4f1e5350721c060b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Mitchell | William Mitchell | William Mitchell
William Mitchell, byname Billy Mitchell, (born Dec. 29, 1879, Nice, France—died Feb. 19, 1936, New York, N.Y., U.S.), U.S. Army officer who early advocated a separate U.S. air force and greater preparedness in military aviation. He was court-martialed for his outspoken views and did not live to see th... |
bd31daecbcfa7146c1cf47adb568881e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Morris-British-artist-and-author | William Morris | William Morris
William Morris, (born March 24, 1834, Walthamstow, near London, England—died October 3, 1896, Hammersmith, near London), English designer, craftsman, poet, and early socialist, whose designs for furniture, fabrics, stained glass, wallpaper, and other decorative arts generated the Arts and Crafts movemen... |
643921fe8897805414748f26b236715b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Morris-Davis | William Morris Davis | William Morris Davis
William Morris Davis, (born Feb. 12, 1850, Philadelphia—died Feb. 5, 1934, Pasadena, Calif., U.S.), U.S. geographer, geologist, and meteorologist who founded the science of geomorphology, the study of landforms.
In 1870 he began three years of service as a meteorologist with the Argentine Meteoro... |
f8f4e5bfff98a70b24c4f54b5e9a5932 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Morris-Hughes | William Morris Hughes | William Morris Hughes
William Morris Hughes, (born Sept. 25, 1862, London, Eng.—died Oct. 28, 1952, Sydney, Australia), prime minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923 and a mainstay of national politics for 50 years.
Hughes emigrated to Queensland in 1884. After working for the unionization of maritime workers in Sydn... |
f4c467b60a507c199f067a1b910b82b4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Morton-Kahan | William Kahan | William Kahan
William Kahan, in full William Morton Kahan, (born June 5, 1933, Toronto, Ontario, Canada), Canadian mathematician and computer scientist and winner of the 1989 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, for his “fundamental contributions to numerical analysis.”
Kahan earned a bachelor’s ... |
777e8f3e1371e9c6d43f4fcbf9f371ca | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Moultrie | William Moultrie | William Moultrie
William Moultrie, (born December 4, 1730, Charleston, South Carolina [U.S.]—died September 27, 1805, Charleston), American general who resisted British incursions into the South during the American Revolution (1775–83).
Elected to the provincial assembly of South Carolina (1752–62), Moultrie gained e... |
1b5a66b4a9b81efab96cca42f6064a5f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-OBryan | William O'Bryan | William O'Bryan
William O’Bryan, (born Feb. 6, 1778, Gunwen, Cornwall, Eng.—died Jan. 8, 1868, New York City), British Methodist churchman who founded the Bible Christian Church (1815), a dissident group of Wesleyan Methodists desiring effective biblical education, a presbyterian form of church government, and the pa... |
0a6dcc8d114ce8f719522fd4a7260792 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-of-Moerbeke | William of Moerbeke | William of Moerbeke
William of Moerbeke, French Guillaume de Moerbeke, (born c. 1215, Moerbeke, Brabant—died c. 1286, Orvieto?), Flemish cleric, archbishop, and classical scholar whose Latin translations of the works of Aristotle and other early Greek philosophers and commentators were important in the transmission o... |
c5bb1e7a73cb9a2a90f6b9749771a14f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-of-Saint-Thierry | William of Saint-Thierry | William of Saint-Thierry
William of Saint-Thierry, French Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, (born c. 1085, Liège, Lower Lorraine—died probably Sept. 8, 1148), French monk, theologian, and mystic, leading adversary of early medieval rationalistic philosophy.
William studied under Anselm of Laon, a supporter of the philosophi... |
0e8c3bb63cd7a0b2613ee5b007e3444f | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Ogden | William Ogden | William Ogden
… in partnership with the mayor, William Ogden, who capitalized the venture with \$50,000 of his own money. The first year, 800 machines were sold. More were sold the next year, and McCormick was able to buy out Ogden.
Its first president was William Butler Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago. A constituent... |
0c015f17637a7bb3102efb3272063e10 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-P-Barr | William Barr | William Barr
William Barr, in full William Pelham Barr, (born May 23, 1950, New York City), American lawyer and government official who served as attorney general of the United States during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush (1991–93) and Donald Trump (2019–20). Barr was the second person in U.S. hist... |
2935951650ad161c8d206a49c309d312 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Paterson-British-economist | William Paterson | William Paterson
William Paterson, (born April 1658, Tinwald, Dumfries, Scotland—died January 22, 1719), Scottish founder of the Bank of England, writer on economic issues, and the prime mover behind an unsuccessful Scottish settlement at Darién on the Isthmus of Panama.
By 1686 Paterson was a London merchant and a me... |
0d827d136f88d04f6b0f1282a40847c6 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Pengelly | William Pengelly | William Pengelly
William Pengelly, (born January 12, 1812, East Looe, Cornwall, England—died March 16, 1894, Torquay, Devon), English educator, geologist, and a founder of prehistoric archaeology whose excavations in southwestern England helped earn scientific respect for the concept that early humans coexisted with e... |
ee5e19d37c8e6866085665e15c60f898 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Penn-English-Quaker-leader-and-colonist | William Penn | William Penn
William Penn, (born October 14, 1644, London, England—died July 30, 1718, Buckinghamshire), English Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom, who oversaw the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe.
William Penn received... |
ec462b1f3fd0f3a49a32b4c0ecd2437b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Penney-Baron-Penney | William Penney, Baron Penney | William Penney, Baron Penney
William Penney, Baron Penney, in full William George Penney, Baron Penney of East Hendred, (born June 24, 1909, Gibraltar—died March 3, 1991, East Hendred, near London, England), British nuclear physicist who led Britain’s development of the atomic bomb.
Penney studied physics at the Imper... |
24a64b4ac9dacf51a8351d15a7a317ac | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Pitt-the-Elder/Leadership-during-Seven-Years-War | Leadership during Seven Years’ War | Leadership during Seven Years’ War
The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War gave Pitt his supreme opportunity for statesmanship. The war began with heavy losses and considerable confusion of policy. The popular demand for Pitt became irresistible, and he declared, “I am sure I can save this country, and nobody else can.” I... |
6dea450100d2d93a980c267813dbc5b3 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Pitt-the-Younger/Pitts-second-ministry-1804-06 | Pitt’s second ministry, 1804–06 | Pitt’s second ministry, 1804–06
Pitt’s second ministry was weaker than the first, for the Addington group, as well as others, went into opposition. The Third Coalition against Napoleon’s France—an alliance with Russia, Sweden, and Austria engineered by Pitt—collapsed after the battles of Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805, and... |
1404b7b0fb2016cf63e13b3d2ddad76c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Powell | William Powell | William Powell
William Powell, in full William Horatio Powell, (born July 29, 1892, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died March 5, 1984, Palm Springs, California), versatile American motion picture and stage actor who played villains in Hollywood silent films and intelligent, debonair leading men in the sound era. He is... |
9a03471bebb416aba662c705847071e1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Quiller-Orchardson | Sir William Quiller Orchardson | Sir William Quiller Orchardson
Sir William Quiller Orchardson, (born March 27, 1832, Edinburgh, Scotland—died April 13, 1910, London, England), British portraitist and painter of historical and domestic genre scenes.
After studying at the Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh from 1850 to 1857, Orchardson began to do illustr... |
5fbf547cb46ee39097ad4742a4699f24 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Radcliffe | William Radcliffe | William Radcliffe
William Radcliffe, (baptized Nov. 14, 1761, Mellor, Derbyshire, Eng.—died May 20, 1842, Gate Hall, Stockport, Cheshire), English inventor.
Radcliffe was the son of a weaver, and in 1789 he set up his own spinning and weaving business in Stockton. His name is principally linked to the dressing (i.e.,... |
a147d912f0947b11694de7ede5614608 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Randolph-Hearst | William Randolph Hearst | William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst, (born April 29, 1863, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died August 14, 1951, Beverly Hills, California), American newspaper publisher who built up the nation’s largest newspaper chain and whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism.
Hearst was the only son of... |
025fd610d1fc182300b71aa53ede24bd | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Rees | William Rees | William Rees
…early 1990s by Canadian ecologist William Rees and Swiss-born regional planner Mathis Wackernagel at the University of British Columbia. An ecological footprint is the total area of land required to sustain an activity or population. It includes environmental impacts, such as water use and the amount of l... |
c252be9ca7b4b4064e7160be675e6955 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Reid | Sir William Reid | Sir William Reid
In 1849 Sir William Reid, a British meteorologist and military engineer, studied the revolving storms that occur south of the Equator in the Indian Ocean and confirmed that they have reversed rotations and curvatures of path compared with those of the Northern Hemisphere. Capt. Henry Piddington subsequ... |
b9476ad2e92ef317786010ac39f9db78 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Renshaw | William Renshaw | William Renshaw
William won the Wimbledon men’s singles championship seven times (1881–86 and 1889), on three occasions defeating his brother in the finals. Ernest was victorious in 1888. Together they won the British men’s doubles championship seven times. At Oxford, where that tournament was originally held, they…
…b... |
79c82ab7ab367d7761d2656352d84f95 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Robertson | William Robertson | William Robertson
William Robertson, (born Sept. 19, 1721, Borthwick, Midlothian, Scot.—died June 11, 1793, Edinburgh), Scottish historian and Presbyterian minister. He is regarded, along with David Hume and Edward Gibbon, as one of the most important British historians of the 18th century.
Robertson was educated at ... |
c3adee34f02a5d28a6c26937e4a490ba | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Rutter-Dawes | William Rutter Dawes | William Rutter Dawes
William Rutter Dawes, (born March 19, 1799, London—died Feb. 15, 1868, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, Eng.), English astronomer known for his extensive measurements of double stars and for his meticulous planetary observations.
Trained as a physician, Dawes practiced at Haddenham and (from 1826) Liv... |
5162c43089b1b32946cc5e0a29125f55 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-S-Hart | William S. Hart | William S. Hart
William S. Hart, in full William Surrey Hart, (born Dec. 6, 1870, Newburgh, N.Y., U.S.—died June 23, 1946, Newhall, Calif.), American stage and silent motion-picture actor, who was the leading hero of the early westerns.
Hart was brought up in the Dakotas, where he lived until he was 16. He made his f... |
e4adc1aab5644d2f6e7153bc5b265c3a | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-S-Knudsen | William S. Knudsen | William S. Knudsen
William S. Knudsen, original name Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen, (born March 25, 1879, Copenhagen—died April 27, 1948, Detroit), Danish-born American industrialist, an effective coordinator of automobile mass production who served as president of General Motors Corporation (1937–40) and directed the... |
9e045615079d626c2e50ffabd3a49ddc | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Samuel-Stephenson | William Stephenson | William Stephenson
William Stephenson, byname Intrepid, (born Jan. 11, 1896, Point Douglas, Man., Can.—died Jan. 31, 1989, Paget, Bermuda), Canadian-born millionaire industrialist whose role as Britain’s intelligence chief in the Western Hemisphere in World War II was chronicled in A Man Called Intrepid (1979).
The s... |
ec3e318b9ab3fc2bff1ca51a904f49a9 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Saroyan | William Saroyan | William Saroyan
William Saroyan, (born Aug. 31, 1908, Fresno, Calif., U.S.—died May 18, 1981, Fresno), U.S. writer who made his initial impact during the Depression with a deluge of brash, original, and irreverent stories celebrating the joy of living in spite of poverty, hunger, and insecurity.
The son of an Armenian... |
32ec14b0de2035bfb436ec1e67e044aa | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Scoresby-Sr | William Scoresby, Sr. | William Scoresby, Sr.
Scoresby Sr., a farmer’s son, was a first-rate navigator, invented the crow’s nest and other aids to ice navigation, and was the first to suggest the use of sledges to reach the pole. His son, who inherited his father’s talents and added to them a…
|
a88bdbe848755bbeba6c51a11cf1ec98 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Julius-Caesar | Julius Caesar | Julius Caesar
Written in 1599 (the same year as Henry V) or 1600, probably for the opening of the Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames, Julius Caesar illustrates similarly the transition in Shakespeare’s writing toward darker themes and tragedy. It, too, is a history play in a sense, dealing with a non-Christi... |
00220bf8a478a36a6f4ff41118060d75 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Literary-criticism | Literary criticism | Literary criticism
During his own lifetime and shortly afterward, Shakespeare enjoyed fame and considerable critical attention. The English writer Francis Meres, in 1598, declared him to be England’s greatest writer in comedy and tragedy. Writer and poet John Weever lauded “honey-tongued Shakespeare.” Ben Jonson, Shake... |
5b5a5ef32117d55e93772fc55d9e161e | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Theatrical-conditions | Theatrical conditions | Theatrical conditions
The Globe and its predecessor, the Theatre, were public playhouses run by the Chamberlain’s Men, a leading theatre company of which Shakespeare was a member. Almost all classes of citizens, excepting many Puritans and like-minded Reformers, came to them for afternoon entertainment. The players wer... |
a20e4e446ccd1b1b0e6b8450d5a82ed4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Smellie-Scottish-publisher-and-scientist | William Smellie | William Smellie
William Smellie, (born 1740, Edinburgh, Scotland—died June 24, 1795, Edinburgh), Scottish compiler of the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1768–71) and a distinguished natural historian.
The son of a master builder and stonemason, Smellie left his grammar school at age 12 to be an apprenti... |
6d0676694944dad161eae8b276f7b70d | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Stafford | William Stafford | William Stafford
William Stafford, in full William Edgar Stafford, (born January 17, 1914, Hutchinson, Kansas, U.S.—died August 28, 1993, Lake Oswego, Oregon), American poet whose work explores man’s relationship with nature. He formed the habit of rising early to write every day, often musing on the minutia of life.
... |
cc9391b156ea2f229c57489a2b4eb8c4 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Steinberg | William Steinberg | William Steinberg
William Steinberg, original name Hans Wilhelm Steinberg, (born Aug. 1, 1899, Cologne, Ger.—died May 16, 1978, New York, N.Y., U.S.), German-born American conductor who directed the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1952 to 1976.
Steinberg worked as an apprentice under Otto Klemperer at the Cologne Opera and ... |
387a7bedbe4bddf50cef3b01b40f948c | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Stokes | William Stokes | William Stokes
William Stokes, (born Oct. 1, 1804, Dublin—died Jan. 10, 1878, Howth, near Dublin), physician and the leading representative of the Irish, or Dublin, school of anatomical diagnosis, which emphasized clinical examination of patients in forming a diagnosis. He was also the author of two important works i... |
a0245391926897a27e0c5e72213a9f6b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Strode | William Strode | William Strode
William Strode, (born c. 1599—died Sept. 9, 1645, London, Eng.), a leader of the Puritan opposition to England’s King Charles I and one of the five members of the House of Commons whom the king tried to impeach in January 1642. The incident enraged the Commons and caused it to begin preparing for war w... |
b1c8a7c837a45b9288db59d56fd163d0 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Thomas | William Thomas | William Thomas
William Thomas, also called Islwyn, (born April 3, 1832, Ynysddu, Monmouthshire [now in Caerphilly], Wales—died November 20, 1878, Mynyddislwyn, Monmouthshire), clergyman and poet, considered the only successful practitioner of the long Welsh poem in the 19th century. His major work is the uncompleted p... |
3d1cdb56776980caa39ac3749f4364a5 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Timothy-Gowers | Timothy Gowers | Timothy Gowers
Timothy Gowers, in full Sir William Timothy Gowers, (born November 20, 1963, Marlborough, Wiltshire, England), British mathematician who won the Fields Medal in 1998 for his work in the theory of Banach spaces.
Gowers studied undergraduate mathematics at the University of Cambridge and went on to finish... |
3533e2bf5c32676bb48a73576a338d1b | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Tuke | William Tuke | William Tuke
At about the same time, William Tuke, a Quaker tea and coffee merchant, founded the York (England) Retreat to provide humane treatment. Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, also advocated protection of the rights of the insane. Despite this progress, more than half a ce... |
7c192a30e588ee5d35c383c8de81e1e1 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Vesey-Fitzgerald | William Vesey-Fitzgerald | William Vesey-Fitzgerald
…by-election in Clare, Ireland, where William Vesey-Fitzgerald, Huskisson’s ministerial successor, defending his seat, was defeated by Daniel O’Connell, the Irish Catholic leader. The defeat of Vesey-Fitzgerald, a popular pro-Catholic, carried an alarming moral for the duke: until Emancipation ... |
58a97d455ab06958ff5856555efd9694 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-W-Howells | William W. Howells | William W. Howells
William W. Howells, in full William White Howells, (born November 27, 1908, New York City, New York, U.S.—died December 20, 2005, Kittery Point, Maine), American physical anthropologist, who specialized in the establishment of population relationships through physical measurement. He is also known f... |
4b270a2a392f8b4a8c1eee28a244bba8 | https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Warburton | William Warburton | William Warburton
William Warburton, (born Dec. 24, 1698, Newark, Nottinghamshire, Eng.—died 1779, Gloucester, Gloucestershire), Anglican bishop of Gloucester, literary critic and controversialist.
Ordained priest in 1727, Warburton was appointed to the parish of Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, the following year. Dur... |
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