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James Churchward (27 February 1851 – 4 January 1936) was a British occult writer, inventor, engineer, and fisherman.
Churchward is most notable for proposing the existence of a lost continent, called "Mu," in the Pacific Ocean. His writings on Mu are considered to be pseudoscience.
Churchward was born in Bridestow, Okehampton, Devon at Stone House to Henry and Matilda (née Gould) Churchward. James had four brothers and four sisters. In November 1854, Henry died and the family moved in with Matilda's parents in the hamlet of Kigbear, near Okehampton. Census records indicate the family next moved to London when James was 18 after his grandfather George Gould died.
He was the elder brother of the Masonic author Albert Churchward (1852–1925). He was a tea planter in Sri Lanka before coming to the US in the 1890s. In James' biography entitled My Friend Churchey and His Sunken Continent, he discussed Mu with Augustus Le Plongeon and his wife in the 1890s.
