James Henry Peters (24 October 1918 in Hackney, London – 9 January 1999 in Thorpe Bay, Essex) was a long-distance runner from England.

He was the first runner to complete a marathon in under 2 hours 20 minutes – an achievement which was equated to the breaking of the four-minute mile.

[citation needed] He achieved this at the Polytechnic Marathon of 1953, a point-to-point race from Windsor to Chiswick, West London.

At the 1954 Commonwealth Games marathon in Vancouver, Peters reached the stadium in first place, 17 minutes ahead of the next runner and 10 minutes ahead of the Games record[citation needed], but he collapsed repeatedly and failed to finish.

After retiring from competitive athletics, Peters worked as an optician in Mitcham, Surrey, and Chadwell Heath, Essex.