William Pinkney (17 March 1764 – 25 February 1822) was a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-MD 3) from 4 March to 1 November 1791 (succeeding Benjamin Contee and preceding John Francis Mercer), US Attorney General from 11 December 1811 to 9 February 1814 (succeeding Caesar Augustus Rodney and preceding Richard Rush), a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-MD 5) from 4 March 1815 to 18 April 1816 (succeeding Alexander McKim and preceding Peter Little), and a US Senator from 21 December 1819 to 25 February 1822 (succeeding Alexander Contee Hanson and preceding Samuel Smith).
Biography[]
William Pinkney was born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1764, and he became a lawyer in 1786 and attended his state's constitutional convention. He served in the House of Delegates from 1788 to 1792 and in 1795, in the US House of Representatives in 1791, as Mayor of Annapolis from 1795 to 1800, as Attorney General of Maryland from 1805 to 1806, as ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1808 to 1811, as Attorney General from 1811 to 1814, in the House again from 1815 to 1816, as ambassador to Russia from 1817 to 1818, and in the US Senate from 1819 to 1822. He was wounded at the Battle of Bladensburg during the War of 1812 while serving as a US Army major. Pinkney died in office in 1822.