Major-General William George Stevens, CB, CBE (11 December 1893 – 7 August 1975) was a New Zealand military leader and administrator.

Between the wars he attended Staff College in England and later held a number of positions which required co-ordination of civilian and military resources.

His father, William Stevens, was a mariner employed by the New Zealand Shipping Company and would be absent from the family home for long periods of time while at sea.

He attended Auckland Grammar School and planned to pursue a career in civil engineering but his mother encouraged him to enter the New Zealand Military Forces.

[1] In 1912, after initially being rejected due to a heart murmur, Stevens entered the Royal Military College at Duntroon in Australia as a cadet officer.

Apart from a period of time during October which he spent in Malta recuperating from illness, he participated in the Gallipoli campaign until the Allied forces were evacuated in December 1915.

[1] While in London in the late 1920s, Stevens formed the view that New Zealand's future defence requirements would involve greater co-ordination between the civilian infrastructure of the government and the military.

In 1937, when he was appointed as secretary of New Zealand's Council of Defence as well as the Chiefs of Staff Committee, he became absorbed in the Organisation for National Security.

[2] The organisation, consisting of a multitude of committees, was responsible for preparation of a manual detailing the actions necessary to bring the country to a war footing.

[2] In late 1939, Stevens accompanied Peter Fraser, the acting prime minister of New Zealand, to London for talks with the British government, advising him on military affairs.

[1] After being overlooked for the role of chief of staff of the New Zealand Military Forces, Stevens decided that he did not desire a career in the peacetime army and retired in 1946.

In June the same year he joined the Department of External Affairs and later took up a position as official secretary to the New Zealand High Commission in London.