John Mockett Cramp was born on July 25, 1796, in St. Peters, Isle of Thanet, Kent, England.
He was a Baptist minister, educator, and author. He attended Stepney Theological Institute in London. He was ordained in 1818 and became pastor of the Dean Street Baptist Church in London and other pastorates in several parts of England. In 1844, his growing reputation as a Baptist scholar led to the offer of the presidency of the Canada Baptist College in Montreal. During his presidency, Cramp edited the Montreal Register and, after 1849, the Colonial Protestant, Journal of Literature and Science, and the Pilot. He also became interested in the efforts of Henriette Feller to evangelize French Canadian Catholics. In 1850, the board of governors of the newly formed Acadia College in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, selected Cramp as its president. The college was on the verge of collapse, but Cramp energetically set out to revive the institution and earned for himself the title “second founder” of Acadia. In addition to his duties as president, he taught classical languages, history, philosophy, theology, logic, political economy, and even geology. He also delivered a monthly public lecture, preached every Sunday evening, acted as unofficial assistant pastor of the Wolfville Baptist Church, and edited the Abstainer, the Athenæum, and Journal of Temperance. He retired in 1869. Among the books he published are “A Text-Book of Popery” (1831); “The Reformation in Europe" (1833); " Lectures for These Times" (1844); “Baptist History" (1868); “The Lamb of God " (1871), and “Paul and Christ, a Portraiture and an Argument” (1873).
In 1820, he married Maria Agate (1787–1823). In 1826, he remarried Anne Burls (1796–1862). He died on December 6, 1881, in Wolfville, Kings, Nova Scotia.