James was the son of Philip Turner James, a surgeon of Hereford, and Frances Gertrude, daughter of John Bodenham. His father's family was descended from the Gwynnes of Glanbran, Carmarthenshire, described in the nineteenth century as "one of the oldest in the Empire." His grandfather, Gwynne James, was also a surgeon, while his great-grandfather, another Gwynne James, was an apothecary. He was educated at Cheltenham College.
Legal and political career
James was admitted to the Middle Temple on 12 January 1849 and was called to the bar on 16 January 1852. He joined the Oxford circuit, where he soon established a notable reputation. In 1867 he was made postman of the Exchequer of pleas, and in 1869 took silk. At the 1868 general election he represented parliament for Taunton as a Liberal, unseating Edward William Cox after an election petition heard in March 1869. He held the seat until 1885, when he was returned for Bury. He attracted attention in parliament by his speeches in 1872 in the debates on the Judicature Act. In September 1873 James was made Solicitor General by William Ewart Gladstone. Already in November 1873 he was promoted to Attorney General by Gladstone, a post he held until the government fell the following year. He received the customary knighthood at the time of his promotion. When Gladstone returned as prime minister in 1880 James resumed this office. He was responsible for introducing the Corrupt Practices Act 1883 and guiding it through parliament. In 1885 he was sworn of the Privy Council. In 1886, he represented Sir Charles Dilke in the Crawford divorce case, where Dilke was accused of adultery with his brother's wife's sister. The actual verdict was ambiguous and James, with disastrous consequences, advised Dilke to have the matter reopened. At the second hearing Dilke was cross-examined to devastating effect and his career ruined. James' advice has been called "some of the worst professional advice that any man can ever have received". On Gladstone's conversion to Irish Home Rule, James distanced himself from him and became one of the most influential of the Liberal Unionists. Gladstone had offered him the Lord Chancellorship in 1886, but he declined it and the knowledge of the sacrifice he had made in refusing to follow his old chief in his new departure lent great weight to his advocacy of the Unionist cause in the country. He was one of the leading counsel for The Times before the Parnell Commission, and from 1892 to 1895 was Attorney General to the Prince of Wales. In 1895 he raised to the peerage as Baron James of Hereford, in the County of Hereford. From 1895 to 1902 he was a member of Lord Salisbury's and Arthur Balfour's Unionist ministries as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In later years he was a prominent opponent of the Tariff Reform movement, adhering to the section of Free Trade Unionists. On 11 August 1902 he was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Grand Cross.
Personal life
Lord James of Hereford died unmarried in August 1911, aged 82. By his mistress Alice, whom he refused to marry, daughter of Robert Hardwicke of London, he left a daughter Alice Henland, who married Lt. Col. George Talbot Lake Denniss, Royal Wilts. Regt. The barony became extinct on his death. His portrait was painted by John St Helier Lander, collection of Middle Temple; his 1893 photo-portrait by Alexander Bassano is in the National Portrait Gallery.
