James Whitford Bashford (traditional Chinese: 柏錫福; simplified Chinese: 柏锡福; pinyin: Bó Xīfú; Foochow Romanized: Báik Sék-hók; May 29, 1849 – March 18, 1919) was a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in China.

Before he was elected the fourth president of Ohio Wesleyan University in 1889 he served as a pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in several places, including Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine and Buffalo, New York.

On October 20 he arrived in Fuzhou,[2] and in the same year he went to Shanghai where he became the first resident bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in China.

In 1918, as the conflict in Europe continued, he issued a statement saying that the war would be followed by a conflict of the white race on one side and the yellow and black races on the other, unless the Christian Church spread its missionary work on a vast scale in Asia and Africa.

[3] Bashford Hall, a residence for first year students on the campus of Ohio Wesleyan University, is named in his honor.