Belfast industrialist, politician and Wesleyan, born in Co. Londonderry, 27 September 1810, where he began work as a carpenter. On moving to Belfast in 1831 he associated with the Primitive Wesleyans being from1840 to 1860 the Belfast representative to Conference. He supported their uniting with the Wesleyan Methodists, which took place in 1878. In Belfast he became a building contractor responsible for some of the largest contracts in Northern Ireland, including the Belfast County Courthouse, 1848-50. He married in 1839 Anne, daughter of Henry Hall, a gentleman whose wealth came from the cotton trade. In 1851 James Carlisle went into partnership as a flax spinner with Philip Johnson, (later Mayor of Belfast,1871), at Brookfield Mills, Crumlin Road, as the cotton trade declined. Originally trading as Johnston & Carlisle, in 1857 it became a limited company, Brookfield Linen Co. Ltd, with Carlisle as its first chairman. The business would never recover from a slump in 1921 and ceased in 1933.

In politics Carlisle was a Conservative Unionist. He was elected as a councillor for the Belfast Dock Ward, later becoming an alderman, but refused the mayoralty. He was also a member of the Belfast Harbour Commission.

The Carlisles were generous benefactors. Their son John Henry Carlisle, born 3 October 1852, died on 21 December 1870, and the family funded the Carlisle Memorial Wesleyan chapel, Belfast, a substantial Gothic church, opened in 1876, in memory of their children.

James Carlisle died on 25 November 1882 and Anne Carlisle died on 8 March 1900.

Entry written by: DCD
Category: Person
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