James Butler Knill Kelly (18 February 1832 – 15 May 1907) was a bishop of the Church of England active in the British colony of Newfoundland and Scotland.

In 1860, upon the death of Joseph Brown, Kelly became registrar and vicar of the Kirkmichael parish on the Isle of Man, while continuing as chaplain to Powys.

In 1839 the Anglican Church had founded the See of Newfoundland, its second bishop, Edward Feild, appealed in 1864 for additional clergy to minister in the diocese, thus offering Kelly an opportunity in North America which he quickly seized, leaving the Isle of Man two years before it achieved Home Rule.

The conference had been lobbied for by, among others, the Canadian synod, but much of the agenda focused on the controversy over John William Colenso, a missionary to the Zulu.

His understandable aversion to sea travel, however, led him to resign the position in 1877 after a fruitless search for a coadjutor who could relieve him of its necessity.

In 1877 Kelly returned to his country of birth, where he became vicar of Kirkby, Lancashire, from 1877 to 1880, bishop-commissary for the Bishop of Chester (1879-1884) and Archdeacon of Macclesfield from 1880 to 1884.

In 1901, he was unanimously elected Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and served in that capacity for three years until his retirement.