James Plaisted Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance, PC (12 July 1816 – 9 December 1899) was a noted British judge and rose breeder who was also a proponent of the Baconian theory that the works usually attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact written by Francis Bacon.
Born in London, he was the son of Edward Archer Wilde, a solicitor, and Marianne (née Norris). His younger brother Sir Alfred Thomas Wilde was a Lieutenant-General in the Madras Army, while Sir John Wylde (Chief Justice of the Cape Colony) and Thomas Wilde, 1st Baron Truro (Lord Chancellor) were his uncles.
He was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge (matriculated 1834, graduated B.A. 1838, M.A. 1842). He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1836, and called to the Bar in 1839.