William Horwood (born 12 May 1944 in Oxford) is an English novelist. He grew up on the East Kent coast, primarily in Deal, within a model modern family—fractious with "parental separation, secret illegitimacy, alcoholism and genteel poverty". Between the ages of six and ten, he was raised in foster care, attended school in Germany for a year, then went on to Grammar School at age eleven. In his eighteenth year, he attended Bristol University to study geography, after which he had any number of jobs—fundraising and teaching, among others, as well as editing for the London Daily Mail.