John Lane (c. October 1678 – 1741) was an 18th-century doctor and metallurgist, who is said to have experimented with making metallic zinc, probably without result. He studied at the Exeter College, Oxford, and medicine at Leiden in 1702. He married Elizabeth Pollard, heiress of Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire in 1713, who survived him, only dying in 1771 at the age of 83. In addition, at some stage he had a stamping mill at Kidwelly, on the site later used for Kidwelly Tinplate Works. His partner had copper mines in Cornwall.