William Shirley (
December 2, 1694 –
March 24, 1771) was the
British governor of
Massachusetts from
1741 to
1759. He was to son of William and Elizabeth Godman Shirley, and was born on
December 2, 1694 at Preston Manor in
Sussex, England. He was educated at
Cambridge then studied law in
London before moving to
Boston in
1731.
His early government jobs included that of surveyor and King's Advocate for New England. He was appointed the royal Governor in 1741. In 1744, he led a successful siege of
Louisbourg, Nova Scotia.
He was commander-in-chief of North American forces, and with
Charles Lawrence, the architect of the
Great Expulsion, the forcible removal of more than 12,000 Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755, an incident some historians consider one of the earliest examples of
ethnic cleansing. On March 31, 1756 the Secretary of War replaced him as commander-in-chief and told him to return to England as soon as possible. He was later exonerated, and served as
Governor of the Bahamas from
1761-1769.
He retired to live with his daughter and her husband (Eliakin Hutchinson) at the Roxbury house. He died there on
March 24, 1771. 
