John McManners CBE FBA FAHA (25 December 1916 – 4 November 2006) was a British clergyman and historian of religion who specialized in the history of the church and other aspects of religious life in 18th-century France.

McManners attended Spennymoor Grammar School before winning an exhibition to St Edmund Hall, Oxford, in 1936.

In September 1939 Great Britain entered the Second World War prompting McManners immediately to volunteer for military service.

He joined his local regiment the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, where he made his name as a winger in their football team, and completed basic training.

McManners also served with the 210 British Liaison Unit (Greek Mission) in Alexandria to help prepare Greece for the time after the war.

In a 1986 review Joseph Tempesta of Ithaca College describes it as a study "extensively researched" that "brings the era to life".

[5] The two-volume Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France published in 1998 "represents an enormous achievement" as reported by Raymond Mentzer of Montana State University.

[6] It is two volumes, more than 1600 pages of text documenting four generations of pre-revolutionary France and the culmination of more than 50 years of research.