James Henry Northrop, (8 May 1856 – 12 December 1940) was born in Keighley, West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom, where he worked in the textile industry. He emigrated to Boston, MA, in the USA in 1881. By 1898, working in Hopedale, Massachusetts for George Draper and Sons he had filed several hundred patents some of which were used in the Northrop Loom. He retired at 42. He died in Santa Ana, California on 12 December 1940, at 84.