William Benson (1682—2 February 1754) was a talented amateur architect and an ambitious and self-serving Whig place-holder in the government of George I. In 1718, Benson arranged to displace the aged Sir Christopher Wren as Surveyor General of the Royal Works, a project in which he had the assistance of John Aislabie, according to Nicholas Hawksmoor, who was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother.^[1]