Lieutenant General Sir William Congreve, 1st Baronet (4 July 1742 – 30 April 1814[1]) was a British military officer who improved artillery strength through gunpowder experiments.

[5] Sir William advocated government-run gunpowder mills, arguing that the privately owned concerns "have had such a prodigious profit allowed them" and yet the merchants left the job in the hands of "artful but ignorant Foremen, who probably made a very considerable profit by their Masters' inattention".

[7] Sir William became the deputy comptroller of the Woolwich Royal Laboratory in 1783, with control over the Faversham and Waltham Abbey mills.

Author Brenda Buchanan asserts, that during his time in these positions, he oversaw three major changes in the manufacturing of gunpowder, being "the substitution of edge runner mills for stamping mills ..., the production of charcoal by low-temperature distillation in closed iron cylinders, and the employment of screw presses for compacting powder into cakes.

[8] However Steele and Doorland have suggested that the perceived increase in strength may have come from better quality construction materials.