Peduru Hewage William de Silva
Popularly as William de Silva
Born on 8 December 1908
Died on 30 July 1988 was a 20th-century Marxist/Trotskyist Sri Lankan politician.
P. H. William de Silva was born at Kahatapitiya in Batapola, Ambalangoda, Ceylon, to a wealthy land-owning family. He received his elementary education at Batapola Mixed School and secondary education at St John’s College, Panadura, Richmond College, Galle, and Ananda College, Colombo. He studied for one year at the University College Colombo (now the University of Colombo) and then travelled to England for further studies at University College, Oxford.

While in England, William de Silva joined the India League and a Marxist study group with other Ceylonese students in London. He then returned to Ceylon and joined the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP). During World War II, he was an anti-war movement leader and was imprisoned in Bogambara Prison and Badulla Prison in Sri Lanka (1943–45). He became a Ceylonese Member of Parliament in 1947 and 1953.