John Whitaker Hulke FRCS FRS FGS (6 November 1830 – 19 February 1895) was a British surgeon, geologist and fossil collector. He was the son of a physician in Deal, who became a Huxleyite despite being deeply religious.
Hulke became Huxley's colleague at the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a long-time collector from the Wealden cliffs of the Isle of Wight, and his work on vertebrate palaeontology included studies of Iguanodon and Hypsilophodon from the Wealden (Lower Cretaceous). He became President of the Geological Society (1882–84); and was awarded Wollaston Medal in 1888. He was President of the Pathological Society of London in 1883, and President of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1893 until his death.
Hulke was born in Deal, Kent the son of a general practitioner. He was educated partly at a boarding-school in England, partly at the Moravian College at Neuwied (1843–1845), where he gained an intimate knowledge of German and an interest in geology through visits to the Eifel district. Of Dutch Reformed descent, and Calvinist leanings, he held strict views: "his Protestantism was of the intolerant kind". He got on well with Huxley, whose agnosticism was also rather straight-laced. After returning from Germany he entered King's College School, and three years later commenced work at the hospital. He qualified MRCS in 1852.