William Hepworth Thompson (27 March 1810 – 1 October 1886)[1] was an English classical scholar and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

With the exception of the year 1836, when he acted as headmaster of a newly established school in Leicester, his life was divided between Cambridge and Ely.

[3] In Trinity College An Historical Sketch, G. M. Trevelyan notes: But Thompson and the society over which he presided (1866–1886) were more ready than their predecessors to accept and even to promote changes long overdue.

As a scholar Thompson devoted his attention almost entirely to Plato; and his Phaedrus (1868) and Gorgias (1871), with especially valuable introductions, remained as the standard English editions of these two dialogues for over forty years.

[3] The quote "We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us" is attributed to Thompson and is recorded in Collections and Recollections by George W. E. Russell (1898) and also in Trinity College An Historical Sketch by G.M.