Sir William Hedges (21 October 1632 – 6 August 1701) was an English merchant and the first governor (1681–1683) of the East India Company (EIC) in Bengal.
Initially posted to the trading station (or factory) in Smyrna, by 1668 he had risen to the position of company treasurer in Constantinople.
Hedges took part in the campaign against the Conventicle Act that forbade religious assemblies of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of England.
At the time, the Company's commercial interests in Bengal were managed from Fort St George in Madras, more than 800 miles down the coast.
Business in Bengal was expanding steadily, but at the same time the Company's interests were increasingly under threat from native rulers as well as from commercial parties keen on breaking its trade monopoly in that part of India.
The Court of Directors therefore decided that the Bengal station needed more autonomy to cope with its various challenges, and created a separate Agency for the province.
He was instructed to put a stop to the growing exactions of the native rulers and their subordinates, to check the recently organised efforts of the 'interlopers' to break through the EIC's monopoly, and to punish the dishonesty of many of the company's own servants.
His want of tact and prudence brought him into constant collision with his associates in the council at Hoogly, especially with Job Charnock, John Beard, and Francis Ellis, and in the end they proved too strong for him.
When he attempted to capture Matthias Vincent, the latter, aware that he was about to be taken prisoner, appeared with a party of well-armed soldiers and forced Hedges to retreat to the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah, further inland.
He also directed that a sermon on charity should be preached annually by the vicar 'the next Sunday to the sixth of July,' the day of his first wife's death.