William Evans Burton (24 September 1804[1] – 10 February 1860) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and publisher who relocated to the United States.

[2] Intended for a career in the church, Burton was a pupil at St. Paul's School in London, an institution associated also with the dramatic names of Robert William Elliston and Charles Mathews.

After several years in the provinces, he made his first London appearance in 1831 at the Pavilion Theatre as Wormwood in The Lottery Ticket, in which part he was much admired, and which he then acted there upward of fifty consecutive times.

In 1832 Burton obtained a chance to show his talents at the Haymarket Theatre—Liston having temporarily withdrawn—and there he played Marall to Edmund Kean as Sir Giles Overreach, and Mrs. Glover as Meg in A New Way to Pay Old Debts, a circumstance which he always remembered, and often mentioned with pride and pleasure.

In May 1833, a play from his pen, called Ellen Wareham, was first presented, and it is mentioned that this piece had the somewhat unusual fortune of being acted at five different theatres of London on the same evening.

He was very successful as Captain Cuttle in John Brougham's dramatisation of Dombey and Son, and in other low comedy parts in plays from Charles Dickens's novels.

[2] His magazine was intended for a general audience, incorporating the standard fare of poetry and fiction, but had a focus on sporting life like hunting and sailing.

For the September 1837 issue Burton wrote an early example of the detective story, 'The Secret Cell', detailing a London policeman's efforts to trace an abducted girl and arrest her kidnappers.

Judgment initially went against her but after a series of appeals the Supreme Court upheld her claim, thus establishing the rights of an alien to dower in the United States.