J.R. Pim was born on 27 September 1862 at Greythorn, County Dublin, the son of James and Elizabeth Pim, and was educated privately at Trinity College, Dublin, where he distinguished himself in Science and Mathematics. He graduated M.A., took up the profession of accountancy and came to South Africa in 1890 to organise the accounting system of the British South Africa Company. He practised in Kimberley, where he was besieged during the Anglo-Boer War, and in Johannesburg, founding the firm Howard Pim and Hardy.

Pim was a man of many and varied interests, active in Johannesburg municipal affairs, serving on the first elected Town Council and organising the raising of the first municipal loans. He was interested throughout his life in politics, particularly race relations and native welfare. For his service on several important commissions he was awarded a C.B.E. in 1919. He was a founder member of both the Joint Council of Europeans and Africans and the South African Institute of Race Relations. One of his last public acts was to draw up the report on the economic position of the Transkei, under the auspices of the Carnegie Commission.

His other interests were education, art and literature. He helped to found in Johannesburg the Public Library, Art Gallery, Bridgman Memorial Hospital (the first non-white maternity home in Johannesburg) and Bantu Men's Social Centre and also the Fort Hare Native College in the Cape Province. A life-long Quaker, he assisted those in need of all races. He married Rosamund Undecima Bere in 1898 and had one son and two daughters. He died on 29 April 1934.

Full details of Pim's life can be found in the Dictionary of South African Biography, Vol.1. Edited W.J. de Kock.