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Scottish accountant and mountaineer

William Wilson Naismith (1856 – 27 September 1935) was a Scottish accountant and mountaineer. He was a key founder of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and created the eponymous Naismith's rule, used to determine to the time necessary to walk a route with a given length and elevation gain.

Naismith was the second of two children born to William Naismith, a physician, and Mary Anne Murray. He was raised in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire and attended Gilbertfield House School. He was introduced to mountain climbing in the Scottish Highlands at an early age by his parents; he had climbed Ben Lomond by the age of nine and made a winter ascent of Beinn Bhreac by fourteen. After school, he completed a degree in accounting at the University of Glasgow.

Naismith began climbing seriously in the 1880s. His difficult ascent of Ben More in 1884 led him to the belief that Scotland's mountains demanded the same level of respect as those in the Alps, and in January 1889 he had a letter published in the Glasgow Herald proposing the formation of a "Scottish Alpine Club". After receiving numerous responses, he and others founded the Scottish Mountaineering Club in March 1889. Naismith, regarded as "the father of the club", was its first treasurer. According to the rule, a fit individual can walk roughly 3 mile (5 km) in an hour, with an additional hour for every 2000 feet (610 m) of altitude gained.

Naismith lived in Glasgow from 1905 onwards and attended the Kelvinside Hillhead Parish Church, Glasgow where he was an elder for 27 years. He married Edith A. W. Barron in 1925 when he was 69 years old. He died on 27 September 1935 after falling ill suddenly, and was buried in his hometown of Hamilton.