He was born in August 1893 the eldest son of Charles Robert (b. 26 September 1860, Cardiff) and Mary E Hemingway (b. abt. 1861, Stirlingshire, Scotland). Charles Robert was a railway contractor. In 1891 he and Mary lived in Sheffield at 1 Eastcliffe Crescent, with their three daughters, Margaret Stewart (5, b. Melton Mowbray Jan/Feb/Mar 1886), Mary Isabel (3, b. Melton Mowbray July/Aug/Sep 1887) and Phyllis D (1, b. Cardiff); they had four live-in female staff: a cook, parlour maid, nurse and housemaid. In 1901 they were living at 'Redcourt', Derby Road, Nottingham, and there were seven children in the house on the night of the census: Mary Isabel (Molly), Phyllis D, Dorothy F (9, b. Sheffield), James (7, b. Scotland), Beatrice E (5, b. Lenton, Nottm), Olive K (3, b. Lenton) and Charles R (11 months). Also in the household were Charles' brothers, Philip (32, widower, civil engineer) and Ralph E Hemingway (23, single, architect). The family had eight female live-in staff: a governess, nurse, cook, table maid, two housemaids, a kitchen/housemaid and a nurse/housemaid; all the staff had been born in Scotland and there appear to be two pairs of sisters. However, in August 1903, when Charles Robert applied to be an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, he gave his address as Brunel Terrace, Derby Road. In 1911 James was a pupil at the Loretto School, Olive was a boarder at a school in Cheltenham and Margaret appears to have been living at The Hermitage, The Park, Nottingham, with two servants in the house; she may have been married in Nottingham at the end of 1911. James' mother presumably died for when his father visited America in 1920, arriving in New York on 17 May from Liverpool in the SS Baltic, he was accompanied by his wife, Jessie Sinclair (46). Charles Robert died in East Lothian, Scotland, in January 1947; one of his executors was his son-in-law, John Rawlings Rees, who had married Mary Isabel (MB, ChB Edin) at Regent Square Presbyterian Church, Camden, London, on 15 December 1921. James' uncle, Ralph Ernest Hemingway, was a second lieutenant in the 8th Bn Sherwood Foresters, and was killed in the attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt on 15 October 1915 (Loos Memorial).