James F. "Jim" Toombs was born on 19 August 1917, the son of Harvey Wilmot Toombs, a Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, pharmacist, and Margaret Robison. The family home was at the corner of Grafton and Rochford Street. Jim attended Prince of Wales College and worked for a time in the furniture department at Holman's Store before enlisting in the armed services in 1939. After the war he returned to Prince of Wales and Mt. Allison to upgrade his educational qualifications in preparation for attending McGill University. At the latter institution he studied architecture, working in the summer months for architectural firms including the office of E.S. Blanchard on Richmond Street in Charlottetown. This office was one previously occupied by the well-known Island architect William Critchlow Harris.

After graduating in May of 1951 with his architectural degree from McGill, he returned to the office of E. Stirling Blanchard to practice his profession. When Blanchard died in 1953, Toombs took over the practice and the projects which were then in progress. For the next four decades Jim Toombs designed and supervised numerous commercial, residential, religious, and public buildings in Charlottetown and the province.

With the exception of residential dwellings for which the split was more even, approximately 25% of these were for new structures while the other 75% were for alterations, renovations, or additions to existing buildings. The former included major projects such as the Active Treatment Centre and Nurses Residence at Falconwood Hospital (a project initially begun by Blanchard), Sunset Lodge Nursing Home, the Royal Canadian Legion Hall, buildings for the Commissioners of Sewers and Water Supply and the Workmens Compensation Board, St. Pius X and St. Marks Presbyterian churches in Sherwood, and homes for several prominent Charlottetown residents. Renovation projects, as well as those to his own buildings, included some for buildings such as the Polyclinic, St. Stanislaus Convent in Kinkora, and St. Peter's Cathedral which had been designed by Blanchard or Harris as well as numerous conversions of residences to apartment dwellings and commercial offices.

Occasionally Toombs did work in neighbouring provinces such as the Bethel Presbyterian Church in Riverview, N.B. and the supervision of St. Joseph's Hospital in Glace Bay, N.S. He also supervised projects in Charlottetown for off-Island firms such as the new store in Charlottetown for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. and provided services of inspection and evaluation of buildings and properties.

Jim Toombs died on 30 April 1995 at the age of 77.