William Benson (1682-1754) was a talented amateur architect and an ambitious and self-serving Whig place-holder in the government of George I. Benson was the eldest son of Sir William Benson, Sheriff of London in 1706-07. In London he published a Whig tract, that offered a warning against Jacobitism and a polemic against Divine Right of kingship in a Letter to Sir J[acob] B[ankes]; it reached its eleventh edition in 1711 and was translated into French. Benson's interests extended to hydraulics. He carried out a project to bring piped water to Shaftesbury. In 1709 he set to work designing Wilbury House for himself. Wilbury was illustrated in Colen Campbell's first volume of Vitruvius Britannicus (1715), credited to Benson as inventor and builder. In 1734 Benson sold Wilbury to his nephew Henry II Hoare and retired to a house in Wimbledon. A product of Benson's retirement was Letters Concerning Poetical Translations (1739).