William Force Stead (29 August 1884 – 8 March 1967) was an American diplomat and poet.
He became an Anglican clergyman, and chaplain of Worcester College, Oxford, from 1927 to 1930.
Stead was born in Washington, D.C. and educated at the University of Virginia.
He was ordained and spent time in Italy, before returning to Oxford and Worcester College as a Fellow.
Stead was a friend of T. S. Eliot, and close to him at the time of his 1927 religious conversion, baptising him in the Church of England.