Martin Folkes FRS (29 October 1690 – 28 June 1754) was an English antiquary, numismatist, mathematician and astronomer who served as the president of the Royal Society from 1741 to 1752.

On the death of Newton he became a candidate for the presidency, but was defeated by Sir Hans Sloane, whom, however, he succeeded in 1741; in 1742 he was made a member of the French Royal Academy of Sciences; in 1746 he received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge.

Before the Society of Antiquaries, of which he was president from 1749 to 1754, he read in 1736 his Observations on the Trajan and Antonine Pillars at Rome and his Table of English Gold Coins from the 18th Year of King Edward III.

[4] According to the archaeologist William Stukeley, he set up an Infidels Club in 1720, and caused several young noblemen of the Royal Society to jeer whenever scriptural material was injected into a scientific debate.

[5] For Sir John Hill's attack on Folkes (Review of the Works of the Royal Soc., 1751), see Isaac D'Israeli, Calamities and Quarrels of Authors (1860), pp. 364–366.