John Towill Rutt (4 April 1760 – 3 March 1841) was an English political activist, social reformer and nonconformist man of letters.
His religious convictions gradually became Unitarian, and by 1796 he was a leading member of the Gravel Pit congregation at Hackney, of which Thomas Belsham was the pastor.
He supported Priestley after the riots in Birmingham, and he was one of Wakefield's bail, smoothing matters after his incarceration in Dorchester gaol.
On his partial withdrawal from business about 1800 Rutt lived for some years at Whitegate House, near Witham in Essex, and afterwards at Clapton and Bromley-by-Bow, before he finally settled at Bexley.
He aided in founding the Monthly Repository, was a regular contributor to its columns, and occasionally acted as its editor; he also wrote in the Christian Reformer.
The years between 1817 and 1831 were chiefly spent in editing the ‘Theological and Miscellaneous Works of Dr. Priestley’ in twenty-five volumes, portions of which were subsequently issued separately.