William Henry Playfair FRSE (15 July 1790 – 19 March 1857) was a prominent Scottish architect in the 19th century who designed the Eastern, or Third, New Town and many of Edinburgh's neoclassical landmarks.

In the 1830s Playfair is listed as living at 17 Great Stuart Street on the prestigious Moray Estate in Edinburgh's West End.

[5] Playfair joined the Free Church following the Disruption of 1843,[6] losing his right to burial in the parish churchyard.

Playfair was Initiated into Scottish Freemasonry in Lodge St David, No.36, (Edinburgh, Scotland) on 18 January 1815.

Two of his finest works are the neoclassical buildings of the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy which are in the centre of Edinburgh.