John Wildman

Sir John Wildman MP
1653 engraving of John Wildman by Wenceslas Hollar. The caption reads nil admirari ("astonished at nothing")
Postmaster General
In office 1689–1691
Preceded by	Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester
Succeeded by	Sir Thomas Frankland; Robert Cotton
Member of Parliament
In office 1689–1693 Serving with Henry St John
Preceded by	John Pleydell
Succeeded by	Henry Pinnell
Constituency	Wootton Bassett
Member of Parliament
In office 1654–1656
Preceded by	(vacancy)
Succeeded by	Colonel Edward Salmon
Constituency	Scarborough

Sir John Wildman (c. 1621 – 2 June 1693) was an English politician and soldier.

Wildman was born to Jeffrey and Dorothy Wildman in the Norfolk town of Wymondham. Jeffrey was a butcher and John was educated as a sizar (a poor scholar who had to work as a servant to pay his way) at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, receiving an MA in 1644. Wildman may have had legal training as he later described himself as an attorney or solicitor.

In the English Civil War Wildman served briefly under Sir Thomas Fairfax. He became prominent, however, as a civilian adviser to the Army agitators, being in 1647 one of the leaders of that section of the army that opposed all compromise with King Charles I.

In December 1647 Wildman wrote a pamphlet, Putney Projects, that attacked Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton for betraying the New Model Army's Declaration of 14 June 1647 in the Heads of Proposals. He may have written parts of The Case of the Army Stated, and he put the views of his associates before the Council of the Army at the Putney Debates that were partly held in Putney parish church between 28 October and 11 November 1647. The soldiers, explained Wildman, "desired me to be their mouth", and he argued on their behalf that the engagements entered into with the King should be cancelled, monarchy and the House of Lords abolished, and manhood suffrage established. He also demanded that the officers should accept an Agreement of the People just put forth by the five regiments, a document that some modern historians consider he had the principal hand in drafting.

Wildman and John Lilburne attempted to build a movement to campaign for the Agreement of the People. The Earl of Clarendon alleged that preparations were made "for his trial and towards his execution". On 18 January 1648 George Masterson, minister of Shoreditch informed against Wildman and Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne for promoting a seditious petition. Wildman and Lilburne were summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, which committed both men to Newgate Prison. Bail was refused, and, in spite of frequent petitions for their release, they remained in prison until 2 August 1648. The historian C.H. Firth stated in the DNB (1900) that Wildman's speech at the bar of the house was very ineffective, and the pamphlet he published in answer to Masterson's charges, entitled Truth's Triumph, was derisively refuted by Masterson in the Triumph Stained.