William Yardley was an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Kent County Cricket Club from 1868 to 1878 and for Cambridge University from 1869 to 1872. In the early 1870s, only WG Grace was reckoned his superior amongst amateur batsmen. Yardley was also an actor, playwright and drama critic.

Little Jack Sheppard is a burlesque melodrama written by Henry Pottinger Stephens and William Yardley, with music by Meyer Lutz, with songs contributed by Florian Pascal, Corney Grain, Arthur Cecil, Michael Watson, Henry J. Leslie, Alfred Cellier and Hamilton Clarke. The comedy lampooned the serious plays based on the life of Jack Sheppard, especially the popular 1839 play by John Buckstone, which was in turn based on the novel of that year by William Harrison Ainsworth.