He was born in London, son of Joseph Stopford, a captain in the English Army, and Elizabeth Boate, widow of Richard Brooking. His father was a younger son of James Stopford, a soldier who fought in Ireland under Oliver Cromwell, settled in County Meath and accumulated great wealth. The senior branch of the Stopford family was given the title Earl of Courtown.
The younger James attended school in Wexford and Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree in 1715. He was a fellow of Trinity College from 1717 to 1727. He became a close friend of Jonathan Swift (his cousin Dorothea "Dolly" Stopford, widow of the fourth Earl of Meath, was one of Swift's closest friends). Swift admired his modesty and learning, and introduced him to other leading writers of the day like Alexander Pope.
^Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 342. ISBN0-521-56350-X.
^"Fasti ecclesiae Hibernicae: the succession of the prelates and members of the Cathedral bodies of Ireland" Cotton, H: Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 1851 Vol 1 p301
Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I., eds. (1986). Handbook of British Chronology (3rd, reprinted 2003 ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-56350-X.
