James Fergusson came to Australia from Glasgow, where he had been a lithographic printer, and had worked as a compositor on the Glasgow Herald. He went to the Victorian goldfields, then worked until 1854 on the Melbourne Argus. Together with bookbinder William Detmold and printer William Moore, around 1860 he took over the business in Flinders Lane founded in 1854 by Trembath and Goodhugh, and founded Fergusson and Moore, in the 1860s one of Melbourne's largest printers. Fergusson also had an interest in the firm Fergusson and Mitchell.
Fergusson died in 1888 at the age of 59.
