Born in 1718, in Hornsea, Yorkshire, and educated in the school at nearby Beverley, John Camm was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on June 16, 1738, and took his B.A.

As a leader of the Church-and-College party in Virginia, Camm defied the authority of his local vestry, the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary, and the colonial legislature in the Two-Penny Acts controversies and the American episcopate debates.

Camm was elected to carry the clergy's case to the Privy Council in England in 1758, where he successfully petitioned the King to disallow the Virginia acts.

A literary battle to which Camm lent his pen was waged in the Virginia Gazette in 1771–1774, and this dispute on the episcopate was lost, from the point of view of the established church in America.

During his career Camm wrote three lengthy pamphlets, a number of addresses to the King, several dozen essays to the gazettes, and some scattered poetry.