James's father had been curate of Slaugham, James was born a few months after his father's death.
Two of his brothers, William & Thomas, benefitted from the Poor Orphans of the Clergy charity in 1764 (their mother re-married to a cordwainer and was still alive though eventually died in the poorhouse), being educated at Knayton near Thirsk, Yorks. William was apprenticed to Orlando Jackson, spectacle maker in London in 1772.
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