The St. James Building dominates Oxford Street. It was built by Clegg, Fryer and Penman between 1912 and 1913 for the Calico Printers' Association. The Calico Printers' Association Ltd. was formed in 1899 by the amalgamation of 46 printing concerns and 13 merchanting concerns, some with weaving and spinning interests, the total number of vendors being 128.


In the United Kingdom the C.P.A. were concerned mainly with commission printing, but it possessed an important merchanting organisation, as well as spinning and weaving mills. It printed more cloth than it merchants, merchants more cloth than it weaves, and uses for weaving more yarn than it spins. C.P.A. had important overseas interests, principally in spinning, weaving, merchanting and finishing. So prominent was the textile industry in 1913 that 620,000 people were working in over 2000 mills in the northwest. So it is understandable that such a grand building was within the means of the company.

As with most of the city's warehouses, the back of the building looks a lot different than the face it shows to the street.