William Charles Goddard Knowles

William Charles Goddard Knowles (; 12 January 1908 – 13 January 1969) was a British businessman in Hong Kong. He was general manager of the Butterfield & Swire, chairman of Cathay Pacific, member of the Legislative Council and the Executive Council and vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong.

Biography Knowles was born in Bombay, British India on 12 January 1908. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, Sussex, and Trinity College, Cambridge. After he graduated he joined Butterfield & Swire and its parent company in London. From 1929 to 39, he worked in different Chinese cities including Yangtze ports, Hong Kong, Tientsin and Shanghai.

He served in the Indian Army during the Second World War and resumed his office at Butterfield & Swire in Shanghai after the war ended. He moved to Hong Kong in 1947 and was appointed general manager of the company in 1957. He was also chairman of associated companies such as Taikoo Dockyard, Taikoo Sugar Refinery, Duro Paint Manufacturing, Swire & MacLaine, Cathay Pacific and the HAECO He was also a director and later the chairman of HSBC and a director of the Hongkong Land and the Union Insurance Society of Canton. Knowles Building in the University of Hong Kong campus is named after him. A character named Quillan Gornt in the novel Noble House is based on Knowles and John Kidston Swire, the two taipans of Butterfield & Swire.

He held the position of executive director of Lloyd's Register of Shipping when he died suddenly on a business trip in Jakarta, Indonesia on 13 January 1969.