Engraver
About 1871 James went to Australia in order to visit his brother William, who had emigrated, and stayed at Stony Park, Brunswick, the home of Theodotus John Sumner. When that house was later destroyed by fire, a record discovered mentioned that many engravings of cottage life, and proofs, by James Faed, were lost in the fire, but that some which survived were hung in the dining room of the rebuilt house.
His engravings of portraits became widely in demand and his first patron was John Watson Gordon who in 1850 became President of the Royal Scottish Academy and Her Majesty's Limner for Scotland. Faed engraved at least one hundred and thirty three plates, one of which was a Royal Commission for the painting of Queen Victoria and Prince Arthur, by Winterhalter, and his last commission was a portrait of the Countess of Seafield which was hung in the Royal Academy in 1877.
The last engraving James Faed undertook, at the age of eighty, was a portrait of the Earl of Home, father of the future Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home. It was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1899 and James received £159/10/- for the commission.
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