No, James was born about 1848 which is the time the requirement to register was coming online, but folks weren't generally doing it.
Prior to that, you're back to parish records or the equivalent in chapels (if they kept any). It gets harder at that point.
Oh - and be flexible in your spelling. Many people back that far weren't literate, and the spelling of names was "fluid". I've traced branches of my and my wife's family back a long way, and in the early years every generation seemed to spell the surname differently. Read: the local Vicar wrote it down how he thought it should be. Between generations, the Vicars changed, and the spelling along with them.