William James (15 November 1854 – 16 February 1889) was a British engineer, who worked in India.
For one year from 1875 to 1876, he was a student at the School of Practical Engineering at Crystal Palace under W. J. Wilson.
He was first employed in building bungalows, machine-shops, engine-sheds for the Northern Bengal State Railway at Saidpore, and afterwards, during the year 1879, was in charge of the construction of 10 miles of the Darjeeling Steam Tramway.
[1] During the last two years of his life he was the resident partner in the firm of Walsh, Lovett, Mitchell and Co., contractors for the Tansa water-works, for bringing a large supply of good water to the City of Bombay.
During this time he had in the working season from six thousand to ten thousand men under his charge, but the anxiety arising from his responsibilities acting on a frame already much weakened by jungle fever, was too much for him, and he died somewhat suddenly from heat apoplexy at Vasind on 16 February 1889, in his thirty-fifth year.