William Postlethwaite (17 September 1829 – 9 April 1908) was an English-born Member of Parliament representing the Canterbury region of New Zealand.
Postlethwaite was born in Broughton, Lancashire, the son of Robert and Agnes Postlethwaite. He was tutored by Branwell Brontë, brother to the Brontë sisters. He married Annie Camilla Brisco, daughter of Sir Robert Brisco, 3rd Baronet, in 1859. He succeeded to his uncle's Oaks estate in Millom, Cumberland, but in an unusual move for landed gentry, moved to New Zealand in 1878.
Postlethwaite represented the Geraldine electorate from 1881 to 1884, when he retired. He was an independent politician.Wilson erroneously classed him as a Reform Party Member of Parliament, although he was an MP in the 1880s before political parties had developed in New Zealand, and the Reform Party was established only after Postlethwaite's death.
He then moved to California in 1891, living as a farmer in Lindsay,1900 United States Federal Census but returned to England, where he died in 1908.
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