John Mudge (1721 – 26 March 1793) was a British physician and amateur creator of telescope mirrors.

He was educated at Bideford and Plympton grammar schools, and studied medicine at Plymouth Hospital.

On 29 May 1777 Mudge was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in the same year was awarded the Copley medal for his ‘Directions for making the best Composition for the Metals for reflecting Telescopes; together with a Description of the Process for Grinding, Polishing, and giving the great Speculum the true Parabolic Curve,’ which were communicated by the author to the society, and printed in the Philosophical Transactions (1777, lxvii.

He made two large ones with a magnifying power of two hundred times; one of these he gave to Hans Moritz von Brühl, and it passed to the Gotha Observatory, the other descended to his son William Mudge.

In 1778 he published ‘A Radical and Expeditious Cure for recent Catarrhous Cough,’ with a drawing of a remedial inhaler, which obtained wide acceptance.