William Henry Poole (1820 – 1896) was an Irish Methodist minister and author. Poole was born in Ireland, but later moved to Toronto, Canada. In 1879 he begins giving 9 lectures which would later become the book Anglo-Israel; or Saxon Race? Proved to be the Lost Tribes of Israel which was published in 1889. This book was well received by many at the time, and in the book The Christian Anglo-Israel Message in English-Speaking World During the Late 19^th and Early 20^th Centuries (2004) by Robert Alan Balaicius, he documents newspapers and clergyman at the time giving the book a good report, and complimenting Poole. Some of those men include Rev. J. M. Buckley, Editor of the Christian Advocate (New York, Rev. A. Burns, President of Hamilton Ladies College, Rev. Dewart, Editor of the Christian Guardian, Rev. Potts, Editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate, and many others. Poole was expelled from the Methodist Church in Canada because of this book and his beliefs in the Anglo-Israel message, and then relocated to Detroit, Michigan, where he became a Methodist Episcopalian minister.

Rev. Poole would go on to write 24 more books, some of which were Bible History and Chronology (1880), The Eastern British Empire, Fifty Reasons Why the Anglo-Saxons Are Israelites of the Lost tribes of the House of Israel, Nuts to Crack or Answers to Twenty-Five Objections to Anglo-Israelism, The Sabbath: Hebrew or Christian, The Wines of the Bible, and The Women of Israel Since Mrs. Abraham.