John Alexander Stewart CIE MC (1882–1948) was a classical scholar, colonial public servant, and professor of Burmese.

[1] Stewart was born in Strichen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and educated at the University of Aberdeen where he graduated with first-class honours in classics in 1903.

He worked for five years in the Settlement (Land Revenue) Department where he met J S Furnivall.

With C W. Dunn he compiled the first[citation needed] Burmese-English dictionary, published under the auspices of the University of Rangoon, in five volumes, the first volume published in 1940, but the project remained incomplete at the time of his death.

He became Professor of Burmese in the University of London and helped found the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies which publishes the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research.