William Harris Ashmead was an American entomologist born on 19 September 1855 at Philadelphia.

He also launched the Florida Dispatch, an agricultural weekly magazine which included a headed section devoted to injurious insects.

In 1879, he began writing papers for scientific publications and, in 1887, he became a field entomologist working for the Ministry for the Agriculture of Florida.

In 1895, he obtained the post of conservation assistant in the Department of Entomology of the U.S. National Museum, a position he occupied until his death.

He was mainly a systematic entomologist who worked on many groups of insects, but particularly on Hymenoptera and he published approximately 260 articles in various scientific reviews.