Daniel Willis James was the son of an American merchant who with his cousin, William Earl Dodge Jr., transformed Phelps, Dodge & Co. from a predominantly mercantile business into one of the largest copper producers in the world.

Daniel James was one of the three founder partners of Phelps, Dodge & Co., a New York trading organisation established in 1833/4, exporting cotton to England and importing manufactured goods in return such as tin, tin plate, iron and copper. James was born in America but was to live in Liverpool for 47 years running the British side of the business called Phelps, James & Co. The company was to dominate the export market of tinplate from the United Kingdom for three-quarters of a century at a time when Wales was the centre of world production.