Sir James Stansfeld, GCB (/ˈstænsfiːld/ STANSS-feeld; 5 March 1820 – 17 February 1898) was a British Radical and Liberal politician and social reformer who served as Under-Secretary of State for India (1866), Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1869–71) and President of the Poor Law Board (1871) before being appointed the first President of the Local Government Board (1871–74 and 1886).

He was admitted a student of the Middle Temple on 31 October 1840, and was called to the bar on 26 January 1849; he does not seem, however, to have practised as a barrister, and later in life derived his income mainly from a brewery at Fulham.

He took an active part in propagating radical opinions in the north of England, frequently spoke at meetings of the Northern Reform Union, and was one of the promoters of the association for the repeal of "taxes on knowledge".

In 1864, as the result of charges made against him by the French authorities, in connection with Greco's conspiracy against Napoleon III, Disraeli, in the House of Commons, accused him of "being in correspondence with the assassins of Europe.

"[2] Stansfeld was vigorously defended by John Bright and William Edward Forster, and his explanation was accepted as quite satisfactory by Palmerston.

He served in Gladstone's first administration (1868)–74) as a third Lord of the Treasury between December 1868 and November 1869, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury between 2 November 1869 and 17 March 1871, and as the twelfth and last President of the Poor Law Board (with a seat in the cabinet) from March to August 1871, before being appointed the first President of the Local Government Board, on 19 August 1871, a post he held until the Liberals lost power in February 1874.

However, before Lord Rosebery left office in June 1895, Stansfeld was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1895 Birthday Honours.