Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss (October 1, 1826 – February 14, 1885) was one of the leading American ordnance engineers of his day.

Starting in the 1850s, he was employed as a gunmaker in Hartford, working on Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles.

Hotchkiss patented a line of projectiles for rifled artillery that were used extensively in the American Civil War.

After his death, the Hotchkiss company also developed in 1897 and later manufactured in large numbers an air-cooled, gas-actuated infantry machine gun which was widely used by several countries, particularly France and the United States during the First World War.

Hotchkiss committed bigamy when he married a Miss Cunningham in a French civil ceremony in Paris in 1867;[5]