James West (antiquary)

James West FRS (2 May 1703 – 2 July 1772) was an English politician and antiquary who served as President of the Royal Society from 1768 to 1772.

He was the only son of Richard West of Priors Marston, Warwickshire and St. Swithin's, London and educated at Balliol College, Oxford (1719).

The historian Lewis Namier claims that in two volumes of correspondence relating to West's management of the constituency only three items are about matters of public interest, the rest mostly being requests for jobs and other favours.

[1] He married Sarah, the daughter of Sir Thomas Steavens, a wealthy timber merchant of Eltham, Kent.

They lived in the Piazza in Covent Garden and bought Alscot Park, then in Gloucestershire but now in Warwickshire, as a country retreat to which he could retire.