Sir James Pickering (died c. 1398) was Speaker of the House of Commons of England in 1378 (which met in Gloucester) and again from 1382 to 1383. The protestation which, as Speaker, he made for freedom of speech, and declaring the loyalty of the Commons, was the first recorded in the rolls. He was descended from the knightly Pickering family of Killington, then in Westmorland, son of Thomas Pickering (1310-1375) and Elizabeth Greystoke (1300-1370), and was married to Alice Ellerton. He owned land at Killington in Westmorland and Selby in Yorkshire and was knighted by 1361.