Francis Neilson (26 January 1867 – 13 April 1961) was an accomplished British-born American actor, playwright and stage director.

An avid lecturer, Neilson was an author of more than 60 books, plays and opera librettos and the most active leader in the Georgist movement.

In the United States, after arriving in New York City, and paying fifteen dollars for a hansom cab ride from the docks to his guest house, Neilson worked several odd jobs which included a longshoreman, a labourer in Central Park (years later he lived at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel, overlooking that park), and some clerical work.

[2] After meeting an African-American man surnamed Johnson, who because of his colour worked as a porter despite his college degree,[2] Neilson became fascinated with education and at times "…went hungry to buy books".

[3] Neilson's first success came in the following years after his discovery of Henry George's teachings, where he became well known and respected for his writing, acting, and directing.

He provided Victor Herbert with a libretto for Prince Ananias commissioned by the theater company The Bostonians which debuted in 1894.

In New York, he befriended director Anton Seidl who took him to Germany and introduced him to Richard Wagner's family in Bayreuth.

His first bid for a parliamentary seat was for the Newport Division of Shropshire in 1906; he lost to the Conservative incumbent, William Kenyon-Slaney, by a margin of 176 votes.

Archaeologist John Garstang, at the age of sixty, was enthusiastically in charge of the excavations, with much success at the site of the port of Mersin in southern Turkey.

Neilson was a benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to which he donated antiquities and several paintings, including A Winter Carnival in a Small Flemish Town, Portrait of a Man, Possibly George Frederick Handel, and The Pelkus Gate near Utrecht.