James Finn

Who was James Finn?

James Finn was a British Consul in Jerusalem, in the then Ottoman Empire. He arrived in 1845 with his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn. Finn was a devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but who did not engage in missionary work during his years in Jerusalem.

Finn was a writer and philanthropist. He was a great believer in productivity, an ideology that was very much in vogue at the time, and in 1853 purchased for £250 Karm al-Khalil a barren piece of land outside the walls of the Old City. Kerem Avraham was established as a training farm for Jews in agriculture and to become productive citizens. Finn employed Jewish laborers to build the first house there in 1855. Cisterns for water storage were built and a soap factory was established which produced high quality soap sold to tourists.

He helped establish the experimental farm at the village of Artas outside Bethlehem.