Sir William Laird Clowes (1 February 1856 – 14 August 1905) was a British journalist and historian whose principal work was The Royal Navy, A History from the Earliest Times to 1900, a text that is still in print. He also wrote numerous technical pieces on naval technology and strategy and was also noted for his articles concerning racial politics in the Southern United States. Despite having trained as a lawyer, Clowes had always preferred literature and writing, publishing his first work in 1876 and becoming a full-time journalist in 1879. For the services rendered in his career, Clowes was knighted, awarded the gold medal of the United States Naval Institute and given a civil list pension. He died in Sussex in 1905 after years of ill-health.