WM minister, whose older brother Walter James (1878-1908; e.m. 1904) was also in the ministry. (His book of prayers, The Unveiled Heart (1909), was published just after his early death and became a cherished aid to devotion among Wesleyan ministers over many years.) Their father, Dr. John Courtenay James (1863-1950; e.m. 1885), born at St. Anthony Meneage, Cornwall, was the author of The Philosophy of Dissent (1900) and of The Language of Palestine and Adjacent Regions (1920).
Francis James was born at Portsmouth on 28 August 1882 and trained at Handsworth College. Recognized as an expert on worship and spirituality, he contributed to the volume of broadcast talks on How Christians Worship (1942) and wrote The Way of Prayer (1952). The devotional series 'For the Quiet Hour' in the Methodist Recorder was begun in 1933 by W. Russell Maltby, but soon taken over by James, who sustained it at a high level for over 30 years.He died at Pembury, Kent on 10 September 1968. Both his son David W. James (7 May 1913 - 9 July 1997; e.m. 1935) and his daughter Margaret James (b.1920), headmistress of Kent College, Pembury 1966-1983, served as missionaries in India.