John McNeill (1795-1883) was born in Oronsay, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, and died in Cannes, France. He was a physician who began his career as an army surgeon for the East India Company in 1816 before becoming a diplomat. He served as the ambassador to Persia (now Iran) from 1824 to 1842. He subsequently chaired the board supervising the Poor Law which led relief investigations in the Western Highlands during the Highland potato famine of 1846 to 1856. In 1855 he was sent to Crimea to investigate organizational and supply failures in the British military. McNeill received several awards and honoraria for his many decades of reform efforts and public service. Mary Baker Eddy, relying on a misapprehension of her cousin Fanny McNeil Potter, mistakenly claimed that she was descended from this John McNeill. In fact, she was descended from a John McNeil of Northern Ireland who immigrated to the Americas in 1718.

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