James Pierrepont Greaves (1 February 1777 – 11 March 1842), was an English mystic, educational reformer, socialist and progressive thinker who founded Alcott House, a short-lived utopian community and free school in Surrey.

[2] According to one account the firm in which he was a partner became bankrupt in 1806 owing to the Milan and Berlin decrees of Napoleon which blocked trade between Britain and the continent; another source says that "after getting rich in commerce he lost his fortune by imprudent speculations".

[3] In 1817, Greaves experienced "some strong interior visitations" which led him to a belief in the "divine in man" and convinced him that he had a spiritual mission in life to share his commitment to the love of God with others.

[7] Greaves and his followers founded Alcott House, in Ham, Surrey (now in Richmond in Greater London), a utopian spiritual community and progressive school which lasted from 1838 to 1848.

[8] Religious writer Francis Foster Barham (1808–1871), a member of Greaves' Aesthetic Society, considered him as essentially a superior man to Coleridge, and with much higher spiritual attainments and experience.

He wrote, "his numerous acquaintances regarded him as a moral phenomenon, as a unique specimen of human character, as a study, as a curiosity, and an absolute undefinable".

An acquaintance whom Greaves frequently visited observed that he was often in financial distress, as he did not attach great importance to conventional notions of earning a living.