[1][2] James Arthur Calata was born in Debe Nek, near King William's Town in the Eastern Cape on 22 July 1895.
He was educated at St Matthew's College in Keiskammahoek, from 1911 to 1914 and later worked as a teacher for a number of years.
Calata became deacon in the Anglican Church in 1921, ordained priest in 1926, and worked briefly in Port Elizabeth, until he was sent to serve as a minister at St. James Mission in Cradock during 1928.
He ministered in Cradock for forty years, then, after the removal of his congregation in the mid-1960s as a result of the Group Areas Act, he became the priest of the Church of the Ascension in the township of Lingelihle.
[9] He was a canon of Grahamstown cathedral from 1959, later during the 1960s he served on the council of St. Peter's, the Anglican College within the Federal Theological Seminary in Alice.