James Stephen Jeans

James Stephen Jeans (1846-1913) Owner of Coal and Iron newspaper - (Iron and Coal Trades Review)

c1848 Born in Elgin

1871 Living at 153 North Street, Anderston, Glasgow: James Jeans (age 25 born Elgin), Newspaper Reporter. With his wife Mary E. Jeans (age 25) and their daughters Florence Jeans (age 11 months). Also a boarder and one servant.

Wrote 'Pioneers of the Cleveland iron trade' by James Stephen Jeans

1911 Living at 52 North Side, Clapham Common: James Stephen Jeans (age 65 born UK), Newspaper Owner - Coal and Iron, and Employer. With his wife Mary Elizabeth Jeans (age 41 born Leeds) and their son Harold Jeans (age 38 born Darlington), Newspaper Editor - Coal and Iron, and Single. Four servants.

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1913 Obituary

JAMES STEPHEN JEANS died on July 31, 1913, at his residence, 52 North Side, Clapham Common, London, S.W., at the age of sixty-seven. He was born in Elgin, Morayshire, in 1846 and, on leaving school, he became associated with his uncle, who at that time owned the Elgin Courant, on the staff of that paper. After further journalistic experience in Edinburgh and in Newcastle, he became chief reporter to the Glasgow Evening Star, one of the first of the halfpenny newspapers to be published in Great Britain, and, at the age of twenty-four, became editor and manager of that journal, in which he had by then acquired a financial interest. The venture was not a success, and he accepted the invitation of the late Mr. Henry King Sparke, who was the owner of the Darlington and Stockton Tim., to become editor of that journal. His residence in Darlington brought him into close contact with the most prominent persons connected with the iron and steel trades of the district, with the conditions and requirements of which he made himself intimately acquainted. Indeed, the estimation in which he was held was such that, on the death, in 1877, of Mr. John Jones, the first Secretary of the Iron and Steel Institute, Mr. Jeans, at the suggestion of the late Sir David Dale and the late Mr. Edward Williams, together with Mr. E. Windsor Richards, applied for the position, to which he was unanimously appointed.

This office he held for many years, conjointly with that of Secretary of the British Iron Trade Association. In this dual capacity he thus became intimately associated both with the technical and commercial aspects of the iron and steel industries. Having acquired a controlling interest in the Iron and Coal Trades Review he resigned the Secretaryship of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1893, and devoted himself to the development and improvement of the Review, at the same time retaining, however, the position of Secretary of the British Iron Trade Association. In the year 1908 his health broke down seriously while spending a holiday abroad, and, on his return to this country, he underwent a prolonged and dangerous illness, which compelled him to relinquish his many activities. Indeed from that period until the time of his death he was practically an invalid, although able occasionally to take part in the business and social interests with which he had been so long associated. He was a voluminous and fluent writer, and was endowed with a literary capacity which enabled him to invest with a style peculiarly his own the somewhat technical subjects to which he devoted himself.

He was a Member of Council of the Royal Statistical Society, a Member of the East India Association and of the Royal Society of Arts, and was twice elected President of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries, in the formation of which he had taken an active part. In addition to many papers which he contributed to these Societies, he published a number of books dealing with "The Manufacture of Steel," "The Iron Trade of Great Britain," "Railway Problems," "Waterways and Water Transport," and "Rings, Trusts, and Corners." His services were frequently in requisition in arbitration cases, and he received many presentations in connection with such work and for his services to the British Iron Trade Association. He organised Commissions in 1895 and 1902 to inquire into industrial conditions of the iron trades on the Continent and in America respectively; he also prepared and conducted the case for the British iron and steel trades before the 1888 Commission on the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, and gave evidence before the Tariff Commission and the Royal Commission on coal supplies of 1904. He was prominently connected with the organisation of the first Exhibition at Earl's Court in 1887 and in the foundation of the Welcome Club in connection therewith, of which he was at one time the Honorary Secretary.

During his association with the Iron and Steel Institute as Secretary, he witnessed many changes and developments. Upon him likewise devolved, during this period, the organisation of numerous important foreign meetings of the Institute—in Austria, Germany, France, Canada, and the United States. As Secretary of the British Iron Trade Association he edited the Annual Statistical Reports, which indeed constitute the only statistical records of any importance which the British iron and steel trades possess. His services to both bodies was suitably acknowledged, and the Council of the Iron and Steel Institute unanimously elected him, on the occasion of his retirement, a Life Member of the Institute with which he had been so long connected, at the same time placing on record their sense of the valuable services he had rendered.

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