William Wales (c. 1838 – September 15, 1907) was an English-American optical instrument inventor specializing in the manufacture of objectives for use in microscopes.
Wales's objective inventions were used frequently in contemporary microscopes and many examples survive in private and museum collections today.
[1] He immigrated to the United States from England in 1862, settling in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and quickly opened his own business manufacturing objectives.
[5] Wales assisted with John Leonard Riddell's invention of the monobjective binocular microscope, constructing the objective in such a way that it could illuminate itself rather than needing to be separately lit.
[1][12] One early edition of The American Naturalist described his inventions, "With no equal power of Powell & Leland's of London, of Hartnack of Paris, of Tolles & Grunow of this country, or of Gundlach of Vienna, various objectives of each and all of which makers I have examined, have either, I myself, or other microscopists of my acquaintance been able to effect this".