James Mangles FRS FRGS (1786 – 18 November 1867) was an officer of the Royal Navy, naturalist, horticulturalist and writer.

[2] In 1811 Mangles was appointed to Boyne, and in 1812 to Ville de Paris, flagship in the English Channel of Sir Harry Burrard Neale.

[2] In 1816 Mangles left England, with his old messmate in the Narcissus, Captain Charles Leonard Irby, on what proved to be a lengthy tour in Europe, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor.

On his return Mangles went into business with his brother Robert, and commissioned James Drummond to collect seeds, plants and herbarium specimens, which they sold to nurserymen.

[2] The letters of Irby and Mangles were privately printed in 1823, and were published as a volume of John Murray III's Home and Colonial Library in 1844.