– 23 September 1801) was a Welsh-born clergyman, historian and religious controversialist.
He went up to Oriel College, Oxford, in 1746 and in 1747 he won the Duke of Beaufort's exhibition.
In 1759 Benjamin Buckler preached a flippant sermon at All Souls College, Oxford, titled Elisha's Visit to Gilgal, and his Healing the Pot of Pottage, Symbolically Explain'd.
In 1760 Nowell wrote an anonymous rebuttal titled A Dissertation upon that Species of Writing called Humour, when Applied to Sacred Subjects, which argued that biblical topics deserved to be treated with 'decency and seriousness' instead of humour and levity.
In 1771 Lord North appointed him to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Oxford, a post he held, along with the principalship of St Mary Hall, until his death in 1801.