page_title: Daniel James (businessman)
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Daniel James (businessman) / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Statistics of tinplate exports managed by Phelps, James &amp; Co 1845 to 1876. Information from Chronology of Tinplate Works of Great Britain by Edward Henry Brooke 1944
context_page_description: Daniel James was one of the three founder partners of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a New York trading organisation established in 1833/4, exporting cotton to England and importing manufactured goods in return such as tin, tin plate, iron and copper. James was born in America but was to live in Liverpool for 47 years running the British side of the business called Phelps, James & Co. The company was to dominate the export market of tinplate from the United Kingdom for three-quarters of a century at a time when Wales was the centre of world production.
context_section_description: During the recession that started in 1837, Daniel James was faced with insolvency in England whilst his partners were investing in lumber and metal manufacturing in American. He wrote to his brother-in-law that "a merchant ought not to be a manufacturer". Again in 1857 a similar situation arose and this time his son expressed concern: “The place for all the Capital we have is in the business, and not in pine lands, factories, Lackawanna R R or Iron concerns”.  Daniel James was a worrier and unlike his partners did not have the inclination or temperament for risk taking.  However, he was suited to be a merchant and a very good one.  From 1833 to 1873 his Liverpool end of the business procured and exported over $300,000,000 worth of metal to America, he also imported and sold cotton to the mills in Lancashire.  In 1859 his long term friend and business partner in Liverpool - Thomas Banks - died.
  Phelps, James & Co. dominated the export of tinplate from the UK. In America the imported tinplate was used for manufacturing such things as roofing, tools, machinery, cans, cutlery, skillets, pots, pans, pitchers, plates, washing boards, bathtubs, etc.
  Daniel James continued to run the business until his death in 1876 leaving a solid foundation from which the next generation would build, not in mercantile.  During the 1880s and beyond his son and William E Dodge Jr. developed vast copper mining enterprises in Arizona and extending railroads to meet the growing demands from an expanding USA.
  Two years after Daniel James died, his partner William E Dodge Sr. retired and the Stokes family left the business. On 31 December 1878 the existing Phelps, James & Co partnership officially 'expired'. Charles Berjew Brooke became the representative in the UK for Phelps James & Co for the final 25 years of its existence. and the business was eventually closed on 31 December 1906.
  Daniel James, like his partners was a religious man.  He met preacher Charles Grandison Finney in New York during the 1830s when Daniel's father-in-law - Anson G Phelps - had rented and later purchased church buildings for him.  Finney records in his memoirs that when he visited England in 1857 he stayed with Daniel James in Liverpool.  Legacies in Daniel James's will included sums for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and London Missionary Society.
caption: Tinplate Exports; Ref: Chronology of the Tinplate Works of Great Britain by Edward Henry Brookes 1944 pp.1
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