Brigadier James Whitehead CB CMG CBE DSO OStJ ADC (18 January 1880–1 December 1955) was a British Indian Army officer who later became a senior officer in the London Metropolitan Police. Whitehead was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Whitehead, an officer in the Black Watch. He was educated at Dulwich College and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant into the Royal West Kent Regiment on 12 August 1899, but on 29 October 1901 transferred to the Indian Staff Corps in the Indian Army. He was promoted Lieutenant on 12 November 1901 and Captain on 12 August 1908, by which time he was serving with the 1st Brahmans. In 1907 he married Winifred Fanny Fell; they had four sons and one daughter. He attended the Staff College from 1911 to 1912.