William Thomas Bridges (1820 or 1821 – 30 September 1894; Chinese: 必列者士; Cantonese Yale: Bītlihtjésih) was a lawyer and public servant in British Hong Kong, where he held the post of Acting Colonial Secretary from 1857 to 1858.

[3] He emigrated to Hong Kong in April 1851 and rose rapidly in local society owing to his special status as a qualified barrister in a colony short of legal experts,[4] becoming Acting Attorney General within a year of his arrival.

[6] In 1856, Thomas Chisholm Anstey arrived in Hong Kong as Attorney General, and his campaigns to root out official corruption rapidly made an enemy of Bridges.

[8] Bridges was a friend of Caldwell and a fellow Freemason, and moved to protect him by ordering Wong's potentially incriminating account books to be destroyed.

Under fire from the press and facing the prospect of removal from office, Bridges quietly left Hong Kong on 15 April 1861,[10] and retired to private life.