The second son of John Fairfax, James Reading Fairfax was apprenticed as a printer at the Sydney Morning Herald at the age of 16. In December 1856 he became a partner in the firm of John Fairfax and Sons. James Fairfax presided over a period of growth in the family newspaper empire. His obituary in the Herald decribed him as 'the captain of the ship, and he was the beau ideal of the captain'. A former employee, F. W. Ward, wrote that 'the aim that moved him most profoundly was the maintainence of Australia's fidelity to England... [Fairfax] keenly felt the responsibility of so directing the Herald's influence that it would always be associated with the British Flag in this country'. James Fairfax also had wide ranging philantropic and artistic interests, and was an active member of the (Methodist) Congregational Union of New South Wales.
See Gavin Souter. Company of Heralds: A Century and a Half of Australian Publishing by John Fairfax Limited and its predecessors 1831-1981. Melbourne: Melbourne U P, 1981.
