Sir Walter Scott claimed to have been told a similar story by a woman in Shetland, and based his poem Advertisement to the Pirate upon it.
William Shakespeare | William Laud | William Blake | William | William III of England | William Morris | William McKinley | William Howard Taft | William Ewart Gladstone | William the Conqueror | William S. Burroughs | William Shatner | William Faulkner | William Randolph Hearst | William Wordsworth | William Tecumseh Sherman | William Hogarth | Prince William, Duke of Cambridge | William Penn | William Jennings Bryan | William Gibson | William Wilberforce | William James | William Makepeace Thackeray | Fort William | William Hanna | William Hague | William III | William Hurt | William Walton |
Cinema films he directed included That'll be the day, All Creatures Great and Small, Swallows and Amazons, Sweet William, Hoodwink, The Captain's Doll, Murder Elite and
In the Ballad of Black-eyed Susan by John Gay, Susan goes aboard a ship in-dock to ask the sailors, where her lover Sweet William has gone.
The actress Rudi Davies is the daughter of Sharp and novelist Beryl Bainbridge, who used Sharp as the inspiration for the main character in the novel Sweet William (1975).
"Sweet william" is often said to honour the 18th century Prince William, Duke of Cumberland.