John Houghton (1645 – 1705) was an English apothecary and writer on agriculture and trade, a Fellow of the Royal Society.
On 19 July 1695, Houghton printed the first personal ad from a man seeking a wife in A Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, initiating the "lonely hearts" industry.
[3] In November 1691, Houghton issued, with the support of leading Fellows of the Royal Society, A Proposal for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, which later took the shape of another Collection published in weekly folio numbers, of which the first appeared on 30 March 1692, and the last (No.
[3] Houghton also published in 1693 a sixpenny sheet, containing An Account of the Acres and Houses, with the proportional tax … of each county in England and Wales (reprinted in Somers Tracts, ed.
To Philosophical Transactions he contributed in 1699 "A Discourse of Coffee" and "The Conclusion of the Protestant States of the Empire, of the 23d of Sept. 1699 concerning the Calendar".