James Sprent (1808 – 22 September 1863) was a Surveyor General of Tasmania, (then the colony of Van Diemen's Land, now a state of Australia).
[1] Sprent was born in Manchester, England and was educated at Glasgow University (M.A., 1825) and St John's College, Cambridge.
Sprent and Calder located and cleared 50 mountaintop stations across the east of the state, leaving markers visibile from a distance, before work was suspended due to budget cuts in 1837.
Sprent began working in the previously unexplored south west Tasmania, becoming the first European to view Federation Peak, which he dubbed "the Obelisk".
Sprent married Susannah Hassall Oakes at St John's Cathedral, Parramatta, NSW on 2 March 1837.