William Henry Wilkins (1860–1905) was an English writer, best known as a royal biographer and campaigner for immigration controls.

[1][2] Initially considering holy orders, at the university Wilkins developed literary tastes and interested himself in politics.

[1] In 1891 Dunraven and Arnold White set up the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens (APIDA), and Wilkins acted as its secretary.

There was an "anti-alien" campaign by the London Evening News, and support from local MPs, and clergy including George Sale Reaney in Stepney.

He died unmarried on 22 December 1905 at 3 Queen Street, Mayfair, London, and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.

[6] He also did some field work in the East End of London, observing hiring practices for recent immigrants in Goulston Street (Aldgate, covered by the Whitechapel area).

[10] The contribution of The Alien Invasion to the immigration debate of the period, with the warnings Wilkins gave of the impact on British working class opinion, the spread of nationalities in view, and the appeal to rich British Jews to limit Jewish immigration in particular, is considered significant.

[15] In 1893 Wilkins wrote a pamphlet for the Women's Emancipation Union on sweated labour in the garment trade, particularly in the East End of London.

[16] In 1892, Wilkins edited, with Hubert Crackanthorpe whom he knew from Cambridge, a short-lived monthly periodical, The Albemarle (9 nos.).

[20] At Lund University in Sweden Wilkins discovered in 1897 the unpublished correspondence between Sophia Dorothea of Celle, the consort of George I, and her lover, Count Philip Christopher Königsmarck.

[1] In 1901 Wilkins edited South Africa a Century ago, letters of Lady Anne Barnard written 1797–1801 at the Cape of Good Hope.

), a popular illustrated book on Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and he wrote occasionally for periodicals.