Lieutenant-Colonel James Burton (né James Haliburton; 29 July 1761 – 31 March 1837) was an English property developer. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography identifies him as the most successful property-developer of Regency and of Georgian London, in which he built over 3000 properties in 250 acres.
Burton built most of Bloomsbury (including Bedford Place, Russell Square, Bloomsbury Square, Tavistock Square, and Cartwright Gardens), and St John's Wood, Regent Street, Regent Street St. James, Waterloo Place, St. James's, Swallow Street, Regent's Park (including its Inner Circle villas in addition to Chester Terrace, Cornwall Terrace, Clarence Terrace, and York Terrace). He financed, and his company built,the projects of John Nash at Regent's Park (most of which were designed by his son Decimus Burton) to the extent that the Commissioners of Woods and Forests described him, not John Nash, as 'the architect of Regent's Park'. Burton also developed the town of St Leonards-on-Sea which is now part of Hastings.