William Whiston, an English clergyman, born at Norton, Leicestershire, Dec. 9, 1667, died in London, Aug. 22, 1752. He graduated at Cambridge in 1690, obtained a fellowship, took orders in 1693, and in 1694 was appointed chaplain to the bishop of Norwich. In 1696 he published his "New Theory of the Earth," in support of the Mosaic account. He was appointed rector of Lowestoft in 1698, but returned to the university in 1701 as deputy professor of mathematics. He succeeded Newton as professor in 1703, and expounded and defended the Newtonian philosophy in his Prcelectiones Physico-Mathematical (1710; translated and published under the title "Newton's Mathematical Philosophy demonstrated," 1716). He had also attained eminence as a preacher, when he adopted Arianism, rejected infant baptism, and began to omit portions of the litany. The bishop of Ely requested him not to fulfil the duties of the Boyle lectureship, in which he was making his views public, but allowed the continuance of the salary. Whiston resigned the lectureship, and in 1710, after several hearings before the heads of the houses, was deprived of his professorship and expelled from the university.

He removed to London, where he published his "Primitive Christianity" (5 vols., 1711-12). For five years repeated attempts were made to convict him of heresy; but he reiterated his opinions in his "Brief History of the Revival of the Arian Heresy in England" (1711), "Athanasius convicted of Forgery" (1712), and "Three Essays" on Trinitarianism (1713). A subscription amounting to £470 was made for him in 1721; and he also derived an income from reading astronomical and philosophical lectures. He subsequently published "An Essay toward restoring the true Text of the Old Testament," containing translations of the passages in which the Samaritan Pentateuch differs from the Hebrew (1722); " Collection of Authentick Records belonging to the Old and New Testament" (2 vols., 1727-'8); " The Primitive New Testament" (1745); and "The Sacred History of the Old and New Testament" (6 vols., 1745). He finally became a Baptist, gathered a religious society at his own house, and believed that the millennium was to begin in 1766, when the Jews would be restored.

His works on prophecy include an " Essay on the Revelation of St. John " (Cambridge, 1706), " The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies" (1708), and "The Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies" (1724). He published an autobiography (2 vols., 1749-'50), and made a translation of Josephus (fol., 1737), which, though not accurate, is still reprinted.