John Michell (December 25, 1724 –  April 29, 1793) is an English clergyman and natural philosopher who provides pioneering insights in a wide range of scientific fields, including astronomy, geology, optics, and gravitation.

He is the first person known to propose the existence of black holes in publication, the first to suggest that earthquakes travel in waves, the first to explain how to manufacture artificial magnets, and the first to apply statistics to the study of the cosmos, recognizing that double stars are a product of mutual gravitation.

He also invents an apparatus to measure the mass of the Earth.

He has been called both the father of seismology and the father of magnetometry.