John Coker (cleric)

John Coker (d. 1631/35) was an English Anglican cleric and the once-reputed author of A Survey of Dorsetshire, a county history published in 1732.

Coker was the third son of Robert Coker of Mappowder, Dorset (d. 1571/2) and his wife, Elizabeth, the daughter and heir of Henry Beaumont of Giddesham.

[1] Coker was long believed to be the author of A Survey of Dorsetshire … to which is Prefix'd a Map of the County (1732), a systematic description of the history, topography, and genealogy of the county, published sometime after the author's death.

[2] This was revealed to be a misattribution by county historian Rodney Legg, in an afterword to the 1980 facsimile edition of the work.

The survey was, in fact, composed by Thomas Gerard (1592–1634) in the 1620s and passed on to the Coker family upon his death.