William James (railway promoter)
| William James | |
|---|---|
William James c. 1800
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| Born |
13 June 1771 Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire |
| Died | 10 March 1837 (aged 65) Bodmin, Cornwall |
| Occupation | Lawyer, land agent, surveyor |
| Known for | Early visionary and promotor of the railway system |
William James (13 June 1771 – 10 March 1837) was an English lawyer, surveyor, land agent and pioneer promoter of rail transport. According to his obituary "He was the original projector of the Liverpool & Manchester and other railways, and may with truth be considered as the father of the railway system, as he surveyed numerous lines at his own expense at a time when such an innovation was generally ridiculed."
William James was born in Henley-in-Arden in Warwickshire in 1771, the second of the seven children of William James, a solicitor from Moseley near Birmingham, and his wife Mary, who came from a wealthy and well-connected family in Kings Norton. The young James was educated at The King's School, Warwick (Now Warwick School); at another school in Winson Green, Birmingham and at Lincoln’s Inn in London. After training and qualifying as a solicitor in Birmingham, he returned to Henley-in-Arden around 1797 to work in his father's practice.
On 4 September 1793 in Wootton Wawen, a mile south of Henley-in-Arden, James married Dinah Tarleton, the daughter of local landowners. The couple settled at the Yew Trees in Henley-in-Arden High Street and enjoyed a high social standing locally, mixing socially with landowners and aristocracy from across the county.
James' father was a wealthy man and a local Justice of the Peace, but the share price collapse that accompanied the panic of 1797 led to increased financial pressures for the family and the solicitors' practice. In 1798 the younger William James started a new career as a land agent, initially managing the estate of the Dewes family of Wellesbourne Hall.
He supervised estates in the West Midlands and beyond for, amongst others, the Dewes family of Wellesbourne Hall, Warwickshire; the Earl of Warwick, of Warwick Castle (but with property widely distributed); the Yates family of Lancashire; the Earl of Dartmouth at Sandwell Park, West Bromwich; the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth in London; and the Agar family of Lanhydrock House in Cornwall. James sought unsuccessfully for coal in East Sussex but successfully operated coal mines in his own right in south Staffordshire. Having an understanding of geology, James invariably advised his clients to concentrate on realising the mineral wealth of their estates and it was in this connection that he first began to propose railways, including, in 1802/03, an early version of the Bolton and Leigh Railway.
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