James Heywood FRS (28 May 1810 – 17 October 1897) was an English Member of Parliament, university reformer, philanthropist and statistician. A Unitarian from a Manchester banking family, he is best remembered as a leading parliamentary advocate of university reform: his motion of April 1850 was the occasion for the appointment of the royal commissions on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and in June 1854 he carried the amendment that removed the religious tests excluding Dissenters from matriculating or taking the BA degree at Oxford. Having "secured the admission of dissenters to the universities", he then "worked to make university education available to women", advocating the opening of London degrees to women and serving on the founding committee and council of Girton College. He was also an early promoter of the free public library movement.