David James (British MP)
British politician (1919-1986)
David Pelham Guthrie-James (25 December 1919 – 15 December 1986) was a British Conservative Party politician, author and adventurer.
Biography
Early life and education
James was born in 1919, the oldest son of Sir Archibald James and Bridget James Miller (née Guthrie). He went first to Summer Fields School in Oxford and then Eton. He left Eton at the age of 17, sailing round the world "before the mast" in the 4-masted barque Viking as a trainee officer. He then joined his father on a trip to Spain where he observed the ongoing Spanish Civil War. In 1938 he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read geography, but left after four terms to join the RNVR, having been awarded an honorary wartime degree.
Wartime service
In June 1940, James became a midshipman on HMS Drake. Later on he served on an armed merchant cruiser patrolling the Denmark Strait. In December 1941, he became the second in command of Motor Gun Boat No.63 operating out of Felixstowe. In the early hours of Sunday 28 February 1943, his then vessel MGB 79, was sunk in action off the Hook of Holland.
“David James (British MP)” enters the record as british politician (1919-1986). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what David, James and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5235553. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1986, 1938 and 1940.
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This entry incorporates text from “David James (British MP)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.