[2] The brothers developed the business with James taking on a wider industry role in the Clyde Shipbuilders' Association where he met Andrew Rae Duncan.

It was not until May 1917 that Sir Eric Campbell Geddes appointed him director of merchant shipbuilding with responsibility to ensure that production targets were achieved.

They then embarked on a rapid process of acquisition and expansion, adopting vertical integration and taking the company into coal mining and steelmaking.

James became vice-president of the National Confederation in 1922 and was the United Kingdom's representative at the International Labour Organization in Geneva between 1922 and 1927, making a connection with Horace Wilson.

[2] James had retained his Territorial commission, commanding the Clyde Coast Brigade, Royal Garrison Artillery, and was promoted to substantive lieutenant-colonel in 1924.

James believed in rigorous management control of costs and wages through the use of automation and technology, and efficient exploitation of manual labour.

[2] Through Duncan, James approached governor of the Bank of England Montagu Norman to underwrite a rationalisation scheme for the shipbuilding industry.

Lithgow was the architect of the liquidation and was rewarded in 1934 by being allowed to purchase Beardmore debentures from the Bank of England on favourable terms, taking control of their iron and steel assets.

[2][20] It was at Beardmores that James spotted young engineering manager Ian MacGregor who broke a strike by driving a crane himself for two weeks.

[2] Again, contacts with Norman and Duncan in 1935 allowed the Lithgows to purchase the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company which was entangled with the insolvency of the Anchor Line.

In 1940, just after the outbreak of World War II, Winston Churchill called James to London, again as Controller of Merchant Shipbuilding and Repair and as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty.