Born in England, James Hiers McColl arrived with his family in Melbourne in 1853. In 1873 he became an insurance agent and legal manager of companies with R. A. Rankin in the firm McColl & Rankin, which his father had started in 1871.
In 1886 James McColl won the Legislative Assembly of Victoria seat of Mandurang. From 1893 to 1894 he was a Minister of Mines and Water Supply in the Patterson ministry, and from 1899 to 1900 he was Minister of Forests and President of the Board of Land and Works in the McLean ministry. In 1901 he entered Federal politics, winning the seat of Echuca, and was in the Senate from 1907 to 1914. He was vice-president of the Executive Council in the Cook ministry, from 1913 to 1914, and a temporary chairman of committees from 1907 to 1912.
A Liberal, he was an advocate of closer settlement under irrigation and dry farming conditions, and also a strong supporter of Federation. He was a Presbyterian and Freemason, and taught at St. Andrew's Sunday School, Bendigo, for fify-five years.
In 1917, McColl purchased an irrigation property at Gunbower, north of Bendigo. He lived there for some years before retiring to Deepdene, Melbourne. He died in 1929.
