Sir John Francis Davis, 1st Baronet Bt KCB FRS (16 July 1795 – 13 November 1890) was a British diplomat and sinologist who served as second Governor of Hong Kong from 1844 to 1848.

Having demonstrated the depth of his learning in the Chinese language in his translation of The Three Dedicated Rooms ("San-Yu-Low") in 1815,[3] he was chosen to accompany Lord Amherst on his embassy to Peking in 1816.

[4] Davis was appointed Second Superintendent of British Trade in China alongside Lord Napier in December 1833, superseding William Henry Chicheley Plowden in the latter's absence.

[9]: 47  During his tenure, Davis was unpopular with Hong Kong residents and British merchants due to the imposition of various taxes, which increased the burden of all citizens, and his abrasive treatment of his subordinates.

In the same year, Davis exhorted China to abandon the prohibition on opium trade, on the basis of its counter productiveness, relating that, in England,

[13]: 120 Davis left office on 21 March 1848, ending unrelenting tensions with local British merchants who saw him as a stingy, arrogant and obstinate snob.

[13]: 120  In 1876, he became a Doctor of Civil Law of the University of Oxford after a donation of £1,666 in three per cent consol bonds to endow a scholarship in his name for the encouragement of the study of Chinese.