Sir James Heath, 1st Baronet

Sir James Heath, 1st Baronet (26 January 1852 – 24 December 1942) was a businessman and Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Early life James Heath was second son of Robert Heath (died 1893), a colliery and ironworks owner, of Biddulph Grange, Staffordshire. He was educated at Clifton College.

Business career 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. The brothers also founded the Birchenwood Colliery Company at Newchapel near Kidsgrove in 1893, and developed an associated coking and coal by-products business.

Political career 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. Billson died suddenly in July 1907, but Heath declined to contest the seat.

His father Robert Heath and brother Arthur Heath were also Members of Parliament.

He was also a J.P. for Staffordshire.

Military service 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.

He married secondly, on 6 February 1924, Mrs Joy Nitch Smith, eldest daughter of John Hounsell, of Stillman Valley, Ogle County, Illinois, U.S.A. There were no children of this marriage, which was annulled at his petition in 1927.

He married fourthly, on 6 February 1935, Dorothy Mary (born 1899 ), elder daughter of Christopher Mortimer Hodgson, of Beech, near Alton, Hampshire, England. Because his only son had died unmarried in World War I in 1914, the title became extinct on his death, aged 90, on 24 December (Christmas Eve), 1942.