William Hey (c. 1733–1797) was a British lawyer who became Chief Justice of Quebec in 1766 and helped formulate the legal system for the province.
[1] At the beginning of 1766 the attorney-general, Charles Yorke, recommended Hey for Chief Justice of Quebec and he was appointed on 3 February 1766.
They left Plymouth in June and reached Quebec in September together with Francis Maseres the newly appointed attorney general for the province.
[2] In September 1774 Hey was nominated as Member of Parliament for Sandwich at the 1774 general election and expected to be returned unopposed on the government interest.
However he did not intend to stay there for long and at the time of the American invasion in summer 1775 wrote on the prospects in Quebec “as gloomy ... in point of security and in the ill humours and evil dispositions of its inhabitants ... as can be imagined”.
He returned to England in November 1775 and in February 1776 made his only speech in Parliament defending the Quebec Act and praising Carleton.