Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/219

 Design, with plates,’ 4to, Southampton, 1869. 15. ‘Photozincography and other Photographic Processes employed at the Ordnance Survey Office,’ 4to, 1870. 16. ‘Notes on the Parallel Roads of Lochaber,’ with map and sketches, 4to, Southampton, 1874. 

JAMES, JOHN (d. 1661), Fifth-monarchy man, was a native of England, born of poor parents, but his birthplace is unknown. He had little education, and was a ribbon-weaver by trade. For some years he earned a living as a small-coal man, but was not strong enough for the work, and returned to weaving. He appears to have been of weak frame and diminutive stature, ‘a poor, low, deformed worm.’ In 1661 he speaks of ‘having not worn a sword this eleven years,’ and implies that he had never been in the army. He became preacher to a congregation of seventh-day baptists, who met in Bulstake Alley, Whitechapel Road. Here he advocated the doctrine of the approaching millennial reign of Christ, and seems to have got into trouble, owing to the vehemence of his expressions, in Cromwell's time. He had no hand in the rising of Fifth-monarchy men under Thomas Venner in January 1661, and, apart from the fanaticism of his preaching, was a peaceable man. On the information of John Tipler, a journeyman tobacco-pipe maker, James and his congregation, to the number of thirty or forty, were arrested in their meeting-place on Saturday, 19 Oct. 1661. James was committed to Newgate, and brought to trial at the king's bench on 14, 19, and 22 Nov. The indictment was for high treason, with five counts. Sir Robert Foster [q. v.], the chief justice, with two other judges, tried the case; the attorney-general (Jeoffry Palmer) and solicitor-general (Heneage Finch, first earl of Nottingham [q. v.]), with four king's counsel, prosecuted for the crown. James was undefended. The evidence as to the use of treasonable language was conflicting; no evidence was given of treasonable action. James was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered. In the interval between his conviction and sentence his wife, Elizabeth James, twice waylaid the king with a petition. Charles held up his finger and said, ‘O, Mr. James, he is a sweet gentleman.’ The sentence was carried out at Tyburn on 26 Nov. 1661. His head was set up on a pole ‘over against the passage to the meeting-place where he and his company were apprehended.’ Some of his addresses, and a remarkable prayer, are contained in ‘A Narrative of the Apprehending … and Execution of John James,’ &c., 1662, 4to; reprinted in Cobbett's ‘State Trials,’ 1810, vi. 67 sq. (nearly in full), and in ‘The Fifth Monarchy of the Bible,’ &c., 1886, 12mo. 

JAMES, JOHN (d. 1746), architect, ‘of Greenwich,’ was son of Thomas and Eleanor James [q. v.] One John James, master of the Holy Ghost School at Basingstoke, Hampshire (29 July 1673), and vicar of Basingstoke (1697–1717) and rector of Stratfield Turgis from 1717 till his death on 20 Feb. 1732–3, had a son, also John James, who has been identified with the architect, apparently in error. In 1705 the latter succeeded Nicholas Hawksmoor [q. v.] as clerk of the works at Greenwich Hospital. He held the post till his death, and thus worked under Wren, Vanbrugh, Campbell, and Ripley. He became master-carpenter at St. Paul's Cathedral on 30 April 1711 (Frauds and Abuses of St. Paul's, pp. 7, 8, 22), and in 1716 assistant surveyor. At the time of his death he appears to have been surveyor. On 6 Jan. 1716, on the resignation of James Gibbs [q. v.], he was chosen surveyor of the fifty new London churches, in conjunction with Hawksmoor. From 22 Jan. 1725 he was surveyor of Westminster Abbey. He was master of the Carpenters' Company in 1734. He is said to have succeeded Hawksmoor as principal surveyor of his majesty's works in April 1736.

The Manor-house opposite the church at Twickenham (afterwards called Orleans House) was rebuilt from his designs for the Hon. James Johnston in 1710, after the model of country seats in Lombardy (Vitruvius Britannicus, 1717, vol. i. plate lxxvii.) The octagon room was afterwards added by Gibbs. The body of the parish church at Twickenham having fallen down on the night of 9 April 1713 was rebuilt from his designs and completed in 1715. It is classic in style, and as a specimen of brickwork irreproachable. He designed the church of St. George, Hanover Square, the first stone of which was laid on 20 June 1712 and the building completed in 1724 (cf. in, Lond. Rediv. iv. 231, 233; plates in , Archi. Eccles. Lond. xlvi., and , London and Westminster, xcii.) He directed some alterations