William Lane (6 September 1861 – 26 August 1917) was an English-born journalist, author, advocate of Australian labour politics and a utopian socialist ideologue.

Lane was born in Bristol, England into an impoverished family. After showing great skill in his education, he worked his way into Canada as first a linotype operator, then as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press where he would later meet his future wife Ann Lane, née Macquire. After settling in Australia with his wife and child, as well as his brother John, he became active in the Australian labour movement, founding the Australian Labour Federation and becoming a prolific journalist for the movement. He authored works covering topics such as labour rights and white nationalism.

After becoming disillusioned with the state of Australian politics following an ideological split in the labour movement, he and a group of utopian acolytes (among them influential writer and poet Mary Gilmore) moved to Paraguay in 1892 to found New Australia, with the intention of building a new society on the foundations of his utopian ideals. Following disagreement with the colony regarding the legality of miscegenation and alcohol consumption, he left to found the nearby colony Cosme (also known as Colonia Cosme) in May 1894, and later abandoned the project altogether in 1899.

Upon resettling in New Zealand, he continued his journalistic endeavours until his death in August 1917. After his death he was both celebrated as a champion of utopian socialism, and condemned as the arrogant leader of a failed new society. Due to his radical politics and his extensive journalistic career, he remains a controversial figure in Australian history.

Lane was born in Bristol, England on 6 September 1861, as the eldest son of James Lane, an Irish Protestant landscape gardener, and his English wife Caroline, née Hall. Lane was born with a debilitating clubfoot, a condition that would be partially corrected in Montreal later in life, leaving him with a limp. Lane's father James was a drunkard who when Lane was born was earning a miserable wage, but later he improved his circumstances and became an employer.

The young Lane was educated at Bristol Grammar School and demonstrated himself as a gifted student, but he was sent early to work as an office boy. Lane's mother died when he was 14 years of age, and at age 16 he migrated to Canada where he worked odd jobs such as a linotype operator. During this time he began engrossed in the writings of economist Henry George and socialist Edward Bellamy. In 1881 by the age of 24 he became a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, where he would meet his future wife Ann Macquire whom he would marry on 22 July 1883.

In 1885 William and Ann Lane, along with brother John, as well as their first child migrated on the Quetta to Brisbane, Australia, where Lane immediately got work as a feature writer for the weekly newspaper Queensland Figaro, then as a columnist for the newspapers Brisbane Courier and the Evening Telegraph, using a number of pseudonyms (Lucinda Sharpe, which some consider to be the work of Lane's spouse; William Wilcher; and Sketcher).

Lane's childhood experiences as the son of a drunkard fashioned him into a lifelong abstainer from alcohol. In 1886 he created an Australia-wide sensation by spending a night in the Brisbane lock-up disguised as a drunk, and subsequently reporting the conditions of the cells as "Henry Harris". Lane's father was a drunk who impoverished the family.