Lieutenant Colonel William Yolland CB, FRS FRSA (17 March 1810 – 4 September 1885) was an English military surveyor, astronomer and engineer, and was Britain's Chief Inspector of Railways from 1877 until his death. He was a redoubtable campaigner for railway safety, often in the face of strong opposition, at a time when railway investment was being directed towards the expansion of the networks rather than the prevention of accidents. He was a member of the three-man committee of inquiry into the Tay Bridge disaster.[1]