assistant chaplain vicar Anglican clergyman
After the war, he was accepted as a student by King"s College London, where he studied Theology, gaining an Master of Arts and Bachelor's Degree.
He was associated with Street Albans Cathedral for some years. He left Dagenham County High School in Dagenham, Essex, at fourteen, when the Second World War broke out, and worked for seven years at a riverside wharf on the Thames where the Globe Theatre now stands. After he was ordained he became Assistant Curate of Street Stephen with Street John, Westminster, from 1951-1955.
He was Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1955-1959, and thereby became associated with some of the best known clerics of his generation: Mervyn Stockwood, John Robinson (author of the bestseller Honest to God), Robert Runcie and Trevor Huddleston.
He was Select Preacher from 1959-1960 to the University of Cambridge. From 1959-1964 he was Vicar of Street George, Camberwell, and Warden of Trinity College Mission.
From 1964-1969 he was Director of Parish and People. From 1964-1972 he was also Proctor in Convocation.
James was made Chaplain to the Queen in 1984 and was Preacher to Gray"s Inn from 1978 to 1997, as well as Director of Christian Action from 1979 to 1990 and one of the people who inspired the 1985 Faith in the City report.
He was Select Preacher from 1991-1992 to the University of Oxford, and was awarded the Lambeth degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1993. He was also the biographer of John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich. He lived in the London Charterhouse.
He died on 1 May 2012.