John Colson FRS (1680 – 20 January 1760) was an English clergyman, mathematician, and the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.

John Colson was educated at Lichfield School before becoming an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, though he did not take a degree there.

He became a schoolmaster at Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School in Rochester, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1713.

[2] In 1726 he published his Negativo-Affirmativo Arithmetik advocating a modified decimal system of numeration.

[3] John Colson translated several of Isaac Newton's works into English, including De Methodis Serierum et Fluxionum in 1736.