Sir James Heath, 1st Baronet was a businessman and Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.
Background
James Heath was second son of Robert Heath (died 1893), a colliery and ironworks owner, of Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire. Heath was an ironmaster and colliery proprietor, who began as a partner in his father"s company in 1873, for whom he travelled round the world twice on business. Following his father"s death in 1893, he and his brother Arthur founded a limited company named Robert Heath & Sons to run the concerns, which they sold to the Low Moor Iron Company in 1910.
Education
He was educated at Clifton College.
Career
The brothers also founded the Birchenwood Colliery Company at Newchapel near Kidsgrove in 1893, and developed an associated coking and coal by-products business
Billson died suddenly in July 1907, but Heath declined to contest the seat. He was also a Justice of the Peace for Staffordshire. Heath played a single first-class cricket match for the Marylebone Club in 1882.
He served in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, being promoted Captain in 1876, and honorary Major in 1890.
He was Lieutenant-Colonel commanding from 1898 to 1902. In 1904 he was made a baronet, of Ashorne Hill in the county of Warwickshire.
Membership
25th United Kingdom Parliament. 26th United Kingdom Parliament. 27th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was Member of Parliament for North West Staffordshire from 1892 to the 1906 General Election when he lost in the Liberal landslide to Sir Alfred Billson.