William duHamel Denney (March 31, 1873 – November 21, 1953) was an American businessman and politician from Dover, in Kent County, Delaware.

In 1920 he was elected Governor of Delaware, defeating the Democratic Party candidate, Andrew J. Lynch, a Georgetown lawyer.

This act completely reworked public education in Delaware by empowering a state superintendent to set standards, consolidated hundreds of tiny local school districts into countywide districts, established a 180-day school year, and provided for a County board of education to appropriate funding through the county property tax.

It lessened the standards, including the 180-day school year, but most importantly moved the funding from the counties to the state through an income tax.

He was prominent among those who persuasively argued its passage, not only in the General Assembly, but in hundreds of small gatherings around the state.

The scenario created weeks of clamor, with the Delaware Bar demanding the reappointment of Curtis and Wolcott saying he would refuse the appointment.

Then Denney dropped a bombshell by appointing his friend and Republican Party leader, T. Coleman du Pont, to the U.S. Senate seat.

Du Pont was eventually punished by being defeated in the U.S. Senate election of 1922, but Wolcott served a long and distinguished career as chancellor.