His father was Sir Alexander Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, 3rd Baronet of Clifton Hall,[1] his mother was Thomasina, née Hunt, and he also had two brothers, William and Keith.
James was educated at St Andrews University before leaving to attend the Royal Military College at Sandhurst; however, after joining the army and becoming a Captain in the Highland Borderers, he left after one year.
[1] Maitland's approach to experimentation was a scientific one; he would only change one variable during an experiment and then would hypothesise how the outcome had happened.
[1] Maitland was meticulous in writing up his experiments; this means that every change that he made in the diet, transport and selective breeding of the fish was documented.
[1] One of his most important experiments was finding ways to transport large quantities of live ova, at the time live ova were sent in crammed packages and when they arrived most did not survive, Maitland took three attempts to work out how to insulate the cargo to stop fluctuations in temperature.