John Styles (17 March 1782 – 22 June 1849) was an English Congregational minister and animal welfare writer.

In 1837, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) sponsored an essay competition, with a prize of £100, for the best essay encouraging greater kindness to animals (illustrating "the obligations of humanity as due to the brute creation").

[4] Historian Rod Preece described Styles as an early church animal welfare proponent.

[4][5] Historian Anna Feuerstein has noted that "Styles compares humans to a shepherd, positioning animal welfare as pastoral power".

Rod Preece has suggested that Styles plagiarised from An Essay on Humanity to Animals (1798), by Thomas Young (1772–1835) of Trinity College, Cambridge, and that the SPCA jury did not notice the borrowings.