William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland, PC (Ire), FRS (3 April 1745 – 28 May 1814) was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1793.

He was educated at Durham School, Eton and Christ Church, Oxford,[2] and was called to the bar, Middle Temple, in 1768.

In 1778, he carried an Act for the improvement of the treatment of prisoners, and accompanied the Earl of Carlisle as a commissioner to North America on an unsuccessful mission to bring an end to the American War of Independence.

During his retirement in the country at Beckenham, he continued his friendship with William Pitt the Younger, his nearest neighbour at Holwood House, who at one time had thoughts of marrying his daughter (see below).

With Pitt's sanction he published his Remarks on the Apparent Circumstances of the War in 1795, to prepare public opinion for a peace.

[3] The subantarctic Auckland Islands group to the south of New Zealand, discovered in 1806, were named after him, as was Eden Quay in Dublin.