William Benton Kinsley

William Kinsley was born in Montpelier, Vermont on Sept. 11, 1934 and died in Hyattsville, MD on April 22, 2026. 

He was a graduate of Bellow Falls HS where he took second in hurdling in the Vermont State Track and Field Championships. After attending Wesleyan University for two years, he transferred to St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, graduating with an honors degree in English in 1958. He received a doctorate in English from Yale University in 1965, taking up a position in the English department—Etudes Anglaises--at the University of Montreal, where he taught until his retirement in 2001. He specialized in 18th Century literature and especially Alexander Pope. He spent most of his retirement in Montreal, then moved to Maryland in 2020 to live with his eldest daughter and her family. He was perhaps most known for his gentle, steadfast kindness, his love of poetry and the outdoors, and his deep religious faith.

He was married to Therese Huang Kinsley, who died in 1996. He is survived by their three daughters, Anne-Marie (Michael Gorman), Claire (Jo Roberts), and Eliane (Eric Sauvé), as well as nine grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren.