William Paul (1678–1716), Vicar of Orton, was a nonjuring Church of England clergyman and Jacobite sympathizer, executed for treason.

Shortly after leaving the university he became curate at Carlton Curlieu, near Harborough, Leicestershire, acting at the same time as chaplain to Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

From Nuneaton he was promoted to the vicarage of Orton on the Hill, Leicestershire, being instituted on 5 May 1709, after taking the oaths to Queen Anne and abjuring the Pretender.

[1] After the rout of the rebels he went south to his own county, and thence to London, where he appeared in coloured clothes, laced hat, full-bottomed wig, and a sword by his side.

After sentence of death was passed he expressed the deepest penitence for his conduct, and wrote letters to the King, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, soliciting mercy, in which he asserted that he now detested and abhorred the rebellion from the bottom of his soul.