James was born on 15 April 1890 at Drumside, in Findo Gask, Perthshire. He is listed on his birth certificate as illegitimate. His father was James Malcolm, a farm grieve and his mother was Elizabeth Gellatly m/s Grant, a widow.

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In 1891, James was living at Drumharvie Cottage, Findo Gask, with his father and Margaret Malcolm m/s Kemp who is on the census as his mother. James (snr) and Margaret married in 1880 so we assume that James Jnr was being brought up with his father and step-mother. Also on the 1891 census, James' birth mother Elizabeth was living with her parents and her 4 year old daughter at Drumside, close by to her son. You wonder how she felt watching her son being brought up by another woman. Maybe this was at her own request, we will never know.

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James Malcolm snr died of pneumonia in 1893 when James Jnr was just 3 years old. On the 1901 census, James was living at Clathy, Findo Gask with his step mother and her parents.

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After having difficulty in finding James on the 1911 census, he was living at Chiddingstone, Kent and working as a gardener at Hever Castle.

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In 1914, James's mother Elizabeth married Stephen Carr, a widower, in Aberdeen. Private James Malcolm served in the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) and was one of the 20,000 British soldiers killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.

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He is remembered on the Perthshire Roll of Honour, on the Thiepval Memorial, on the memorial in Gask Church and on the Inverkip War Memorial, although the Inverkip connection remains unknown.

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James' stepmother, Margaret, died in Muthill, Perthshire in1933 and his birth mother, Elizabeth, died in Aberdeen in 1941.