James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792. His parents belonged to the working class. His father's earnings during many laborious years of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a week. He had been bred to the trade of a mill-wright, and was for some time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck as an engine-wright at his colliery near Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs. Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a woman remarkable through life for her clever, managing, and industrious habits. She had the charge of Mrs. Cunningham's children for some time after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it was in compliment to her former mistress and her husband that she named her youngest son James Beaumont after the latter.