William Snook (3 February 1861–9 December 1916) was an English running champion, whose life was mired in controversy and ended in poverty.

[1] Snook's earliest recorded athletic success was a third place in a quarter-mile race for under-18s at an 1877 Wenlock Olympians meeting, when he ran for Pengwern Boat Club.

[7] In July 1881 he visited Paris, where he won a private 7+1⁄2-mile (12.1 km) race against M. Duplay, an army officer and racehorse owner, in the Bois de Boulogne.

[8] From August 1882 until the end of that year, he was suspended from AAA events, as the result of an allegation - which he denied - that he had been complicit in a professional runner competing as an amateur, under an assumed name.

[12] A second appeal, in February 1887, supported by the Midlands branch of the AAA, and a petition signed by over 300 athletic club representatives, was denied by 13:12, but referred to the organisation's Annual General Meeting, where his final attempt to clear his name was rebuffed by a 26:16 vote.

[14] While living in Levallois-Perret a town just outside Paris,[15] in September 1895, Snook was tried for the distraction-theft of bonds from a customer in a branch of the bank Crédit Foncier, Monsieur Eugene Joly de Morny.

[19] They separated, and she sued for divorce in 1892 (the case being heard before Francis Jeune) on the grounds of his cruelty, and his adultery with her cousin, who bore him a daughter in January 1892.

[20][21] She became aware of Snook's infidelity when he was called as a witness in a May 1891 trial brought because the cousin had had a (then-illegal) abortion, and admitted the affair.

An appeal for funds was held in England, from April that year, by the Birmingham-based newspaper Sport & Play and Wheel, attracting many donations from his former teammates, and competitors, and other athletes.