James Maxwell (died 1792) was an officer in the British Marines and member of Australia's First Fleet which established a penal colony in New South Wales in 1788. A long-serving Marine officer prior to joining the Fleet, Maxwell arrived in the colony and served there for some 6 months but was incapacitated by a combination of dysentery and a disease of the optic nerves. He was invalided back to England in July 1788 and died in Stonehouse, Plymouth in 1792.