John Hely later Hely-Hutchinson (13 June 1724 – 4 September 1794) was an Anglo-Irish lawyer, politician, and academic who served as the 21st Provost of Trinity College Dublin from 1774 to 1794.

He was the son of Francis Hely, a gentleman of County Cork, was educated at Trinity College Dublin (BA 1744), and was called to the Irish bar in 1748.

Hely-Hutchinson was, however, an inveterate place-hunter, and there was a point in Lord North's witticism that if you were to give him the whole of Great Britain and Ireland for an estate, he would ask the Isle of Man for a potato garden.

Early in 1768, an English Act was passed for the increase of the army, and a message from the king setting forth the necessity for the measure was laid before the House of Commons in Dublin.

Hely-Hutchinson's support had been so valuable that he received as a reward an addition of £1,000 a year to the salary of his sinecure of alnager, a major's commission in a cavalry regiment, and a promise of the Secretaryship of State.

[1] In the same year, the economic condition of Ireland being the cause of great anxiety, the government solicited from several leading politicians their opinions on the state of the country with suggestions for a remedy.

"My opinion", he said, After sketching a scheme for increasing the number of diocesan schools where Roman Catholics might receive free education, he went on to urge that In 1777, Hely-Hutchinson became Secretary of State.

When Henry Grattan in 1782 moved an address to the king containing a declaration of Irish legislative independence, Hely-Hutchinson supported the attorney-general's motion postponing the question; but on 16 April, after the Easter recess, he read a message from the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Portland, giving the king's permission for the House to consider the matter, and he expressed his sympathy with the popular cause which Grattan on the same day brought to a triumphant issue.