John Baines (1787–1838), was an English mathematician.
Baines was born at Westfield farmhouse in the parish of Horbury, Yorkshire, in 1787. From 1810 at least, he sent mathematical contributions to periodicals, including 'Ladies' Diary,' the 'Gentleman's Diary,' the 'York Miscellany,' and other similar periodicals, which in those days were noted for their geometrical and algebraic problems.
He wrote to the Northern Star from Nottingham.
The Ladies' Diary for 1833 carried a more substantial article on Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, written to prove its confirmation of the Mosaic account.
From his boyhood he gave proofs of a strong mathematical bias, and in his latter years was a well-known correspondent of the His teaching career took him from Horbury Bridge (c.1810–1813) to Reading (c.1816) as a mathematics master, then to Nottingham (c.1818), Dewsbury (c.1819), and finally (c.1829) Thornhill (West Yorkshire) where he died after being for nine years he had been master of Thornhill Grammar School.
He was an early friend of the mathematician T. S. Davies (1794–1851).
From the Latin inscription on his tombstone in Horbury churchyard he appears to have been also skilled in Latin, Greek, and natural science, especially botany, 'in herbis decernendis peritus.'
"Baines, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.