David William Paynter (1791–1823) was an English author.
Giving up on a medical career, he took up poetry and drama, and became closely associated with James Watson, a local writer, with whom he figured in magazines and newspapers as "Corporal Trim", while Watson called himself "Uncle Toby".
[2] In the introduction to his King Stephen, Paynter described his efforts to get it staged.
After his pieces had been declined by several managers, he collected a company of his own, and produced King Stephen at the Minor Theatre, Manchester, on 5 December 1821.
He appended some of his own writings, including letters from Lancaster Castle, where he had been a prisoner for debt.