James Haddon (fl. 1556), was an English divine.
Haddon, brother of Walter Haddon, proceeded B.A. in 1541 and M.A. in 1544 at Cambridge, and was one of the original fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, 1546. In March 1550-1 he became a licensed preacher, and about the same time was chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk, and tutor to his daughter, Lady Jane Grey. Some interesting particulars of the household of his patron are given in his letters to Bullinger of Zurich (Orig. Lett. Parker Soc.) In August 1552 he was preferred to a prebend in Westminster, and in October was granted the deanery of Exeter, the patent of which was not signed till 8 January in the following year (Strype, Eccl. Mem. iv. 272-4). He left Suffolk's household with regret (Orig. Lett. p. 289). He preached before the court in Lent 1553, when, as Knox relates, "he most learnedly opened the causes of the bypast plagues, affirming that worse were to follow unless repentance should shortly be found" (Laing, Knox, iii. 177).
On the accession of Mary he was one of the six champions in the convocation of October 1553 who maintained the cause of the reformation in five days' disputation on the real presence. In the long contest Haddon got the better of Thomas Watson, afterwards bishop of Lincoln. (Haddon's part in this controversy is given briefly in Philpot's narrative, which was printed shortly after, and was reprinted by Foxe ; see Philpot, Examinations, Parker Soc. But a much more extensive account has been recently printed in Dixon's Hist.of Ch. of Engl. vol. iv., from the Foxii MSS. in the Harleian Library. This original is entitled 'Part of the Disputation upon the Sacrament, an. 1553, between Watson and Haddon.')
In 1554 Haddon left England, with a letter to Bullinger from the imprisoned Hooper, in which Hooper highly commends him (Orig. Lett. p. 103). He went, however, not to Zurich, but to Strasburg, whence he forwarded Hooper's letter to Bullinger (ib. p. 291). To Bullinger he continued to write from Strasburg for two or three years down to March 1556. He complains of the poverty to which he was reduced in exile. The date of his death is unknown. His epitaph was written by his brother Walter (Poemata, p. 100), with whom he has been occasionally confounded (cf. Philpot, Examinations, published by the Parker Society). His name is omitted by Le Neve in the list of deans of Exeter, and he may perhaps never have entered upon that dignity. Among the manuscripts at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is a letter 'De Matrimonio' addressed to him, probably by Bucer (Nasmith, Catalogue, p. 134).
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Haddon, James". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.