James Henry Peters (24 October 1918 in Hackney, London – 9 January 1999 in Thorpe Bay, Essex) was a long-distance runner from England. He broke the world record for the men's marathon four times in the 1950s. He was the first runner to complete a marathon in under 2 hours 20 minutes – an achievement which was equated to the breaking of the four-minute mile. He achieved this at the Polytechnic Marathon of 1953, a point-to-point race from Windsor to Chiswick, West-London. Later the same year Peters set the first sub-2:20 clocking on an out-and-back course, at the Enschede Marathon in the Netherlands.