American mining engineer and amateur botanist. William Hillman Shockley was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1875. He went on to become a well-known figure in Nevada and the American South, where he worked on mining operations alongside his brothers, Walter and George.

Shockley collected plants as a hobby while living at Candelaria, Nevada, from 1880-1893. He was the first person to collect in the White Mountains found on the border of Inyo and Mono County, California, and also made many collection excursions in Nevada during this time.

Shockley travelled the world in his capacity as a mining engineer. In 1903 he made extensive travels in Peru and in 1905 made a trip to Sudan and Egypt. He married May Bradford, a geology graduate 22 years his junior, in 1908, and together they settled for a while in London, England, where May gave birth to their only son, William Bradford Shockley (1910-1989). W.B. Shockley co-invented the transistor and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1956. The Shockleys returned to the U.S. in 1913 and lived in Palo Alto, then, later, Los Angeles, where Shockly died in 1925. Plants named in his honour include Acamptopappus shockleyi A.Gray and Lupinus shockleyi S.Watson

Sources:
J.H. Barnhart, 1965, Biographical Notes Upon Botanists, 3: 272
W.L. Jepson, 1931, "The Botanical Explorers of California", Madroño, 2: 26-28.