John William Horsley

John William Horsley (14 June 1845 - 25 November 1921) was a Church of England priest, campaigner and philanthropist. He was also granted honorary canonries of Rochester Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral (1905). and spent curacies in Witney and St Michael Shoreditch.

On Shoreditch he began his work to alleviate poverty and improve conditions for prisoners. His next post was as Clerkenwell Prison's chaplain (1876–1886), only leaving the post when that prison was demolished, then becoming secretary to the Waifs and Strays Society (1886–1889). He also married Mary Sophia (1855–1890), daughter of that prison's governor Captain Rowland Bentinck Codd (1824–1880) in 1877. He was elected mayor of Southwark in 1910 before finally serving as Vicar of St Martin of Tours Church, Detling (1911–1921). He died in Kingsdown and was granted his dying wish of being buried in Detling in the same grave as his daughter (killed there by a lorry whilst working as a milkwoman during the First World War).

Works Practical Hints for Parochial Missions (1877, with Nathaniel Dawes) Jottings from Jail: Notes and Papers On Prison Matters (1887) What Doctors say about Alcohol (1891) Prisons and Prisoners (1898) Sporting Prophets. A letter on the betting mania. (1902) The return to the Father : seven sermons on a part of the parable of the prodigal son (1904, in collaboration with the Rev Thomas Hancock) Introduction to Masonic Jurisprudence and Symbolism as interpreted by Grand Lodge Decisions by John Thomas Lawrence (1908) "I Remember" : Memoirs of A "Sky Pilot" in the Prison and the Slum (1911) How Criminals are Made and Prevented: a retrospect of forty years (1912) A Commentary on the Litany (1915) Our British Snails (1915) Place Names in Kent (1921)