British land-agent to the Montague family of Papplewick Hall, Nottinghamshire. He met Margaretta Hopper, known as 'Meta' to her family and friends, and they married (1826). Both shared an interest in collecting pteridophytes. John RIley was elected a member of the Botanical Society of London (1838) and later a Fellow of the Linnean Society (1840). Margaretta was also a member of the former society and donated a set of specimens to the herbarium of the Botanical Society of London (1839) representing every native species then known to occur in the British Isles.

John Riley died unexpectedly during a visit to York; both he and later Margaretta Riley were buried at St James's Church, Papplewick. After John's death Margaretta had dispersed his herbarium of some 2,200 specimens (c. 1847), the exact fate of which is not known. Some material apparently passed to James Forbes Young (1796-1860), whose own herbarium was donated to K (1860) and subsequently transferred to BM (1884), but that only contained some 670 specimens. Some Riley pteridophyte specimens are at BM, perhaps representing part of the original herbarium.