Ralph Button (died 1680) was an English academic and clergyman, Gresham Professor of Geometry, canon of Christ Church, Oxford under the Commonwealth, and later a nonconformist schoolmaster.
[1] On the outbreak of the First English Civil War in 1642, Button, who sympathised with the parliamentarians, moved to London, and on 15 November 1643 was elected Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, in the place of John Greaves.
1648 Button was appointed by the visitors junior proctor; on 11 April he pronounced a Latin oration before Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, the new chancellor of the university, and on 13 June he resigned his Gresham professorship.
On 4 August he was made canon of Christ Church and public orator of the university, in the place of Henry Hammond, who had been removed by the parliamentary commission.
[citation needed] Button showed independence in successfully resisting the endeavour of the visitors to expel Edward Pocock from the Hebrew and Arabic lectureship on the ground of political disaffection.