John Rowland Rea, FBA (born 1933) is a British papyrologist.
In 1957, he was appointed an assistant keeper of the Public Record Office and in 1961 moved to Christ Church, Oxford, to be a resident lecturer.
He left Christ Church in 1965 and was then employed by the University of Oxford as Lecturer in Documentary Papyrology from 1965 to 1996.
He was elected to a senior research fellowship at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1969, also retiring in 1996.
Rea edited several volumes of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (vols.