John Gayer (Lord Mayor of London)

John Gayer or Gayre (baptised 1584 - died 20 July 1649) was an English merchant who was Lord Mayor of London in 1646.

Gayer moved to London, and at one stage of his career spent some years in Syria, where a strange event later led him to institute the Lion sermon.

[3] He instituted the annual Lion sermon at St Katharine Cree Church, Leadenhall Street, London.

The sermon was inspired by his time in the Syrian Desert, when a lion passed him by without attacking him, leading him to believe that he had had a miraculous deliverance.

[6] Gayer endowed St Katharine Cree with a fund to preach the sermon, gave money to charities, and bought a baptismal font for the church inscribed with his coat of arms.