William B. Widnall
American politician (1906–1983)
William Beck Widnall (March 17, 1906 – December 28, 1983) was a Republican Party politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives for 24 years representing New Jersey's 7th congressional district.
Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, Widnall attended public schools, graduating from Hackensack High School in 1922. He graduated from Brown University in 1926 with a Ph.B. degree and went on to receive a law degree from the New Jersey Law School (now Rutgers School of Law–Newark) in 1931.
Widnall then practiced law in Hackensack and served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1946 to 1950. He was elected to Congress on February 6, 1950, in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of J. Parnell Thomas, who had been convicted and sentenced to federal prison for corruption. He opposed building the Kennedy Center in its current location as being too difficult to reach and not attached to the larger Metro system. Widnall served until his own resignation from Congress on December 31, 1974, following his failed reelection bid in 1974. Widnall voted in favor of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
After leaving Congress, Widnall served as chairman of the National Commission on Electronic Fund Transfers from November 1975 to 1981.
A longtime resident of Saddle River, New Jersey, Widnall died at a nursing home in Ridgewood, New Jersey, on December 28, 1983, at the age of 77 due to atherosclerosis and Parkinson's disease.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2577938. VIAF identifies the subject as 31729089. The Library of Congress control number is no2005054166. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1983, 1922 and 1926.
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This entry incorporates text from “William B. Widnall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.