James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

{{short description|British academic (1838–1922)}}

{{Other people|James Bryce}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}}

{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = The Viscount Bryce

| honorific-suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OM|GCVO|PC|FRS|FBA}}

| image = 1st Viscount Bryce 1902b.jpg

| smallimage =

| caption = Bryce in 1902

| ambassador_from = British

| country = United States

| term_start = 1907

| term_end = 1913

| monarch = Edward VII
George V

| primeminister = Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
H. H. Asquith

| predecessor = Sir Henry Mortimer Durand

| successor = Sir Cecil Spring Rice

| office2 = Chief Secretary for Ireland

| term_start2 = {{start date|1905|12|10|df=y}}

| term_end2 = {{end date|1907|1|23|df=y}}

| monarch2 = Edward VII

| primeminister2 = Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman

| predecessor2 = Walter Long

| successor2 = Augustine Birrell

| office3 = President of the Board of Trade

| term_start3 = {{start date|1894|5|28|df=y}}

| term_end3 = {{end date|1895|6|21|df=y}}

| monarch3 = Victoria

| primeminister3 = The Earl of Rosebery

| predecessor3 = A. J. Mundella

| successor3 = Charles Thomson Ritchie

| office4 = Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

| term_start4 = {{start date|1892|8|18|df=y}}

| term_end4 = {{end date|1894|5|28|df=y}}

| monarch4 = Victoria

| primeminister4 = William Ewart Gladstone

| predecessor4 = The Duke of Rutland

| successor4 = The Lord Tweedmouth

| office5 = Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

| term_start5 = {{start date|1886|2|7|df=y}}

| term_end5 = {{end date|1886|7|20|df=y}}

| monarch5 = Victoria

| primeminister5 = Gladstone

| predecessor5 = Hon. Robert Bourke

| successor5 = Sir James Fergusson, Bt

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1838|5|10|df=y}}

| birth_place = Belfast, Ireland

| death_date = {{death date and age|1922|1|22|1838|5|10|df=y}}

| death_place = Sidmouth, Devon, South West England

| party = Liberal

| occupation = Politician

| profession = Academic

| signature = Signature of James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce.jpg

| education = University of Glasgow
Heidelberg University
Trinity College, Oxford

}}

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|sep=,|OM|GCVO|PC|FRS|FBA}} (10 May 1838 – 22 January 1922), was a British academic, jurist, historian, and Liberal politician. According to Keith Robbins, he was a widely traveled authority on law, government, and history whose expertise led to high political offices culminating with his successful role as ambassador to the United States, 1907–13. In that era, he represented the interests of the vast British Empire to the United States. His intellectual influence was greatest in The American Commonwealth (1888), an in-depth study of American politics that shaped the understanding of America in Britain and in the United States as well. In 1895, he chaired the Royal Commission on Secondary Education.Keith Robbins, "History and politics: the career of James Bryce." Journal of Contemporary History 7.3 (1972): 37–52.

Background and education

Bryce was born in Arthur Street in Belfast, County Antrim, in Ulster, the son of Margaret, daughter of James Young of Whiteabbey, and James Bryce, LLD, from near Coleraine, County Londonderry.{{cite journal |title= Death of Lord Bryce. Statesman and Diplomatist. Great Historian |journal= The Times |date= 23 January 1922 |page= 10}} The first eight years of his life were spent residing at his grandfather's Whiteabbey residence, often playing for hours on the tranquil picturesque shoreline. Annan Bryce was his younger brother.{{Cite ODNB|id=49022|title=Bryce, (John) Annan|last = Russell|first = Iain F.|date=23 September 2004}} He was educated under his uncle Reuben John Bryce at the Belfast Academy,Fisher, H. A. L. (1927) [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015069849670;seq=5;view=1up James Bryce: Viscount Bryce of Dechmont, O.M.], [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015069849688;seq=17;view=1up;num=iii Vol. 2], London resp. New York. p. 13 Glasgow High School, the University of Glasgow, the University of Heidelberg and Trinity College, Oxford.

He was elected a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in 1862 and was called to the Bar, Lincoln's Inn, in 1867. His days as a student at the University of Heidelberg gave him a long-life admiration of German historical and legal scholarship. He became a believer in "Teutonic freedom", an ill-defined concept that was held to bind Germany, Britain and the United States together. For him, the United States, the British Empire and Germany were "natural friends".{{cite journal |first=Keith G. |last=Robbins |title=Lord Bryce and the First World War |journal=The Historical Journal |volume=10 |issue=2 |year=1967 |pages=255–278 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00027473 |s2cid=159537330 }}

Academic career

Bryce was admitted to the Bar and practised law in London for a few years but was soon called back to Oxford to become Regius Professor of Civil Law, a position he held from 1870 to 1893.{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Bryce, James|volume=4|page=699}} From 1870 to 1875 he was also Professor of Jurisprudence at Owens College, Manchester. His reputation as a historian had been made as early as 1864 by his work on the Holy Roman Empire.{{cite journal|author=Pollock, Frederick|author-link=Sir Frederick Pollock, 3rd Baronet|title=James Bryce|journal=The Quarterly Review|volume=237|date=April 1922|pages=400–414|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044092529320;view=1up;seq=422}}

In 1872 Bryce travelled to Iceland to see the land of the Icelandic sagas, as he was a great admirer of Njáls saga. In 1876 he ventured through Russia to Mount Ararat, climbed above the tree line and found a piece of hand-hewn timber, {{Convert|4|ft|m|abbr=}} long and {{Convert|5|in|cm|abbr=}} thick. He agreed that the evidence fit the Armenian Church's belief that it was from Noah's Ark and offered no other explanations.[http://www.noahsarksearch.com/BryceJames/BryceJames.htm James Bryce]

In 1872 Bryce, a proponent of higher education, particularly for women, joined the Central Committee of the National Union for Improving the Education of Women of All Classes (NUIEWC).{{Cite web |title=Bryce, James Bryce, Viscount, 1838-1922 |url=https://archivalcollections.library.mcgill.ca/index.php/bryce-james-bryce-viscount-1838-1922 |access-date=April 25, 2025 |website=McGill}}

Member of Parliament

File:1895_James_Bryce.jpg

File:The Rt Hon James Bryce and Prof Goldwin Smith (HS85-10-18301).jpg

In 1880 Bryce, an ardent Liberal in politics, was elected to the House of Commons as member for the constituency of Tower Hamlets in London. In 1885 he was returned for South Aberdeen and he was re-elected there on succeeding occasions. He remained a Member of Parliament until 1907.{{London Gazette |issue=27995 |date=15 February 1907 |page=1066}}

Bryce's intellectual distinction and political industry made him a valuable member of the Liberal Party. As early as the late 1860s he served as Chairman of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education. In 1885 he was made Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under William Ewart Gladstone but had to leave office after the Liberals were defeated in the general election later that year. In 1892 he joined Gladstone's last cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster{{London Gazette |issue=26319 |date=23 August 1892 |page=4801}} and was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time.{{London Gazette |issue=26318 |date=19 August 1892 |page=4742 }}

In 1894 Bryce was appointed President of the Board of Trade in the new cabinet of Lord Rosebery,{{London Gazette |issue=26518 |date=1 June 1894 |page=3181}} but had to leave this office, along with the whole Liberal cabinet, the following year. The Liberals remained out of office for the next ten years.

In 1897, after a visit to South Africa, Bryce published a volume of Impressions of that country that had considerable influence in Liberal circles when the Second Boer War was being discussed. He devoted significant sections of the book to the recent history of South Africa, various social and economic details about the country, and his experiences while travelling with his party.

In 1900 he introduced a Private Member's Bill to secure access for the public to the mountains and moorlands in Scotland.{{Cite news |date=3 February 1900 |title=Private Members' Bills |pages=6 |work=The Manchester Guardian}}

The "still radical" Bryce was made Chief Secretary for Ireland in Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet in 1905 and remained in office throughout 1906.{{Cite ODNB|id=32141|title=Bryce, James, Viscount Bryce|last = Harvie|first=Christopher|author-link = Christopher Harvie}} Bryce was critical of many of the social reforms proposed by this Liberal Government, including old-age pensions, the Trade Disputes Act and the redistributive "People's Budget," which he regarded as making unwarranted concessions to socialism.{{cite book|title=A Citizen of the World: The Life of James Bryce|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S3JnAAAAMAAJ&q=The+Life+of+James+Bryce+John+T.+Seaman+...+in+strength,+while+in+the+Trades+Disputes+Act,+Old+Age+Pensions,+and+the+so-called+People%27s+Budget,+the+Liberal+party+itself+had+made+what+to+Bryce+were+unwarranted+concessions+to+socialism.|publisher=I. B. Tauris|last=Seaman|first=John T.|date=2006|page=208|access-date=21 May 2016|isbn = 978-1-84511-126-7}}

''The American Commonwealth'' (1888)

Bryce had become well known in America for his book The American Commonwealth (1888), a thorough examination of the institutions of the United States from the point of view of a historian and constitutional lawyer. Bryce painstakingly reproduced the travels of Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote Democracy in America (1835–1840). Tocqueville had emphasised the egalitarianism of early-19th-century America, but Bryce was dismayed to find vast inequality: "Sixty years ago, there were no great fortunes in America, few large fortunes, no poverty. Now there is some poverty ... and a greater number of gigantic fortunes than in any other country of the world"{{cite book |author = Bryce, Viscount James |title= The American Commonwealth |chapter= Chapter CXI: Equality |volume= III | page= 745}} and "As respects education ... the profusion of…elementary schools tends to raise the mass to a higher point than in Europe ... [but] there is an increasing class that has studied at the best universities. It appears that equality has diminished [in this regard] and will diminish further."James, Viscount Bryce, The American Commonwealth, p. 746 The work was heavily used in academia, partly as a result of Bryce's close friendships with men such as James B. Angell, President of the University of Michigan and successively Charles W. Eliot and Abbott Lawrence Lowell at Harvard.{{cite book |first=Frank |last=Prochaska |title=Eminent Victorians on American Democracy: The View from Albion |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2012 |pages=97–98, 102 |isbn=978-0-19-965379-9 }} The work also became a key text for American writers seeking to popularise a view of American history as distinctively Anglo-Saxon.{{cite journal |first=Patrick M. |last=Kirkwood |title='Michigan Men' in the Philippines and the Limits of Self-Determination in the Progressive Era |journal=Michigan Historical Review |volume=40 |issue=2 |year=2014 |pages=63–86 [p. 80] |doi=10.5342/michhistrevi.40.2.0063 }} The American Commonwealth contains Bryce's observation that "the enormous majority" of American women opposed their own right to vote.{{cite book |author = Bryce, Viscount James |title= The American Commonwealth |chapter= Chapter XCVI: Woman Suffrage |volume= II | page= 560}}

Ambassador to the United States

File:Middleton_in-law_Viscount_Bryce_(far_left)_beside_Prince_Arthur_in_top_hat._1911_copyright_Library_of_Congress_(2).jpg, Governor General of Canada (also wearing top hat)]]

In February 1907 Bryce was appointed Ambassador to the United States.{{London Gazette |issue=27995 |date=15 February 1907 |page=1065}} He held this office until 1913, and was very efficient in strengthening Anglo-American ties and friendship. The appointment, criticised at the time as withdrawing from the regular diplomatic corps one of its most coveted posts, proved a great success. The United States had been in the habit of sending, as minister or ambassador to the Court of St James's, one of its leading citizens: a statesman, a man of letters, or a lawyer whose name and reputation were already well known in Great Britain. For the first time Great Britain responded in kind. Bryce, already favourably regarded in America as the author of The American Commonwealth, made himself thoroughly at home in the country; and, after the fashion of American ministers or ambassadors in England, he took up with eagerness and success the role of public orator on matters outside party politics, so far as his diplomatic duties permitted.{{EB1922|inline=y|title=Bryce, James Bryce|volume=30|page=514|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopaediabri30chisrich/page/514/mode/1up?view=theater}}

He made many personal friends among American politicians, such as President Theodore Roosevelt. The German ambassador in Washington, Graf Heinrich von Bernstorff, later stated how relieved he felt that Bryce was not his competitor for American sympathies during the First World War, even though Bernstorff helped to keep the United States from declaring war until 1917.

File:Butt, Baden-Powell, Taft, Bryce2.jpg, William Taft and James Bryce at the White House in 1912]]

Most of the questions with which he had to deal related to the relations between the United States and Canada, and in this connection he paid several visits to Canada to confer with the Governor General and his ministers. At the close of his embassy he told the Canadians that probably three-fourths of the business of the British embassy at Washington was Canadian, and of the eleven or twelve treaties he had signed nine had been treaties relating to the affairs of Canada. "By those nine treaties," he said, "we have, I hope, dealt with all the questions that are likely to arise between the United States and Canada questions relating to boundary; questions relating to the disposal and the use of boundary waters; questions relating to the fisheries in the international waters where the two countries adjoin one another; questions relating to the interests which we have in sealing in the Behring Sea, and many other matters." He could boast that he left the relations between the United States and Canada on an excellent footing.

Peerage

In 1914, after his retirement as Ambassador and his return to Britain, Bryce was raised to the peerage as Viscount Bryce, of Dechmount in the County of Lanark.{{London Gazette |issue=28797 |date=30 January 1914 |page=810 }} Thus he became a member of the House of Lords, the powers of which had been curtailed by the Parliament Act 1911.

First World War

Along with other English scholars, who had ties of close association with German learning, he was reluctant in the last days of July 1914 to contemplate the possibility of war with Germany, but the violation of Belgian neutrality and the stories of outrages committed in Belgium by German troops brought him speedily into line with national feeling.

Following the outbreak of the First World War Bryce was commissioned by Prime Minister H. H. Asquith to write what became known as The Bryce Report in which he described German atrocities in Belgium. The report was published in 1915 and was damning of German behaviour against civilians.Keith G. Robbins, "Lord Bryce and the First World War." Historical Journal 10#2 (1967): 255–78. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637865 online]. Bryce's account was confirmed by Vernon Lyman Kellogg, the Director of the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, who told the New York Times that the German military had enslaved hundreds of thousands of Belgian workers, and abused and maimed many of them in the process.Robbins, 1967.

Bryce strongly condemned the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire mainly in 1915. Bryce was the first person to speak on the subject in the House of Lords, in July 1915. Later, with the assistance of the historian Arnold J. Toynbee, he produced a documentary record of the massacres that was published as a Blue Book by the British government in 1916. In 1921 Bryce wrote that the Armenian genocide had also claimed half of the population of the Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire and that similar cruelties had been perpetrated upon them.Travis, Hannibal. "[https://ssrn.com/abstract=1809090 Genocide in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire, Iraq, and Sudan]." Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2010, 2007, pp. 237–77, 293–294.Travis, Hannibal. "[http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/yv544142p5rnx055/?p=91e7dbe895ec4cbf9eef0ad842fef76a&pi=6 'Native Christians Massacred': The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians During World War I] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120716033637/http://utpjournals.metapress.com/content/yv544142p5rnx055/?p=91e7dbe895ec4cbf9eef0ad842fef76a&pi=6 |date=16 July 2012 }}." Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 1, No. 3, December 2006, pp. 327–371. Retrieved 2 February 2010.

Beliefs

According to Moton Keller:

Bryce believed in Liberalism, the classic 19th century Liberalism of John Bright and William Gladstone, of free trade, free speech and press, personal liberty, and responsible leadership. This notably genial gregarious man had his hates, chief among them illiberal regimes: the Turkish oppressors of Bulgars and Armenians, and, later the Kaiser's Reich in World War I.{{cite journal |first= Morton |last= Keller |title= James Bryce and America |journal =The Wilson Quarterly |volume= 12 |issue= 4 |year=1988 |pages= 92 |jstor= 40257378}}

Bryce had a distrust of current democratic practices seen as late as his Modern Democracy (1921), which was a comparative study of a certain number of popular governments in their actual working. On the other hand, he was a leader in promoting international organizations. During the last years of his life Bryce served as a judge at the International Court in The Hague, and promoted the establishment of the League of Nations.Pollard, 1923.{{Cite book |last=Kaiga |first=Sakiko |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DjMiEAAAQBAJ |title=Britain and the Intellectual Origins of the League of Nations, 1914–1919 |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-48917-1 |language=en}}

Honours and other public appointments

File:Bryce Escutcheon.png

Bryce received numerous academic honours from home and foreign universities. In September 1901, he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Dartmouth College,{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Court Circular|date=26 September 1901 |page 7 |issue=36570}} and in October 1902 he received an honorary degree (LLD) from the University of St Andrews,{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence |date=23 October 1902 |page=9 |issue=36906}} and in 1914 he received an honorary degree from Oxford.

He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1894.{{cite web |publisher=Royal Society |title=Fellows 1660–2007 |url=https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf |access-date=6 October 2016}}

In earlier life, he was a notable mountain climber, ascending Mount Ararat in 1876, and published a volume on Transcaucasia and Ararat in 1877; in 1899 to 1901, he was the president of the Alpine Club. From his Caucasian journey, he brought back a deep distrust of Ottoman rule in Asia Minor and a distinct sympathy for the Armenian people.On Bryce′s engagement with the Armenian question before the genocide, see Oded Steinberg, [https://www.academia.edu/26438077/The_Origins_of_the_Armenian_Question_Journal_of_Levantine_Studies_Winter_2015_ James Bryce and the Origins of the Armenian Question], Journal of Levantine Studies 5, No 2 (Winter 2015), p. 13–33.

In 1882, Bryce established the National Liberal Club, whose members, in its first three decades, included fellow founder Prime Minister Gladstone, George Bernard Shaw, David Lloyd George, H. H. Asquith and many other prominent Liberal candidates and MP's such as Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell.{{cite web|url=http://archives.lse.ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=DELL%2F2%2F3|title=General Correspondence – Meeting at National Liberal Club – 1914. Ref No. Dell/2/3. British Library of Political and Economical Science|publisher=British Library (of Economical and Political Science)|access-date=14 January 2014}} In April 1882 Bryce was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.[http://www.americanantiquarian.org/memberlistb American Antiquarian Society Members Directory] He was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1893 and an International Member of the American Philosophical Society in 1895.{{Cite web |date=2023-02-09 |title=James Bryce {{!}} American Academy of Arts and Sciences |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/james-bryce |access-date=2024-03-15 |website=www.amacad.org |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=James+Bryce&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2024-03-15 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

In 1907 he was made a Member of the Order of Merit by King Edward VII,{{London Gazette |issue=27994 |date=12 February 1907 |page=963 |supp=y}} At the King's death, Bryce arranged his Washington Memorial Service.{{cite web|last=Lord Bryce|first=Viscount James|url=http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1910/reference/frus.frus1910.i0021.pdf|title=Telegram British Embassy, Washington|publisher=Telegram British Embassy, Washington|date=8 May 1910|access-date=29 November 2015}} At the time of Bryce's memorial service at Westminster Abbey, his wife, Elizabeth, received condolences from King George V, who "regarded Lord Bryce as an old friend and trusted counsellor to whom I could always turn."{{cite news|last1=Rayner|first1=Gordon|title=How the family of 'commoner' Kate Middleton has been rubbing shoulders with royalty for a century|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/kate-middleton/10135251/How-the-family-of-commoner-Kate-Middleton-has-been-rubbing-shoulders-with-royalty-for-a-century.html|work=UK Daily Telegraph |date=21 June 2013|access-date=31 October 2016|quote=regarded Lord Bryce as an old friend and trusted counsellor to whom I could always turn.}}{{cite news|last=New York Times|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/28/109833839.pdf|work=New York Times|title=Britain offers American President Bust of Lord Bryce|date= 28 January 1922|access-date=23 May 2013}} Queen Victoria had said that Bryce was "one of the best informed men on all subjects I have ever met".{{cite book|last=Martin|first=Stanley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zWVscq9SdgYC&pg=PA315|title=One Hundred Years of Matchless Honour – The Order of Merit|page= 315 |publisher=I.B.Tauris|isbn=978-1-86064-848-9|date=21 December 2006}}{{London Gazette |issue=27994 |date=12 February 1907 |page=963 }} In 1918 he was appointed GCVO.

Bryce was president of the American Political Science Association from 1907 to 1908. He was the fourth person to hold this office.[http://www.apsanet.org/ABOUT/Leadership-Governance/APSA-Presidents-1903-to-Present APSA Presidents and Presidential Addresses: 1903 to Present] He was president of the British Academy from 1913 to 1917. In 1919 he delivered the British Academy's inaugural Raleigh Lecture on History, on "World History".{{cite journal|author=Viscount Bryce|title=World History|journal=Proceedings of the British Academy, 1919–1920|year=1976 |volume=9|pages=187–211|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015029392563&view=1up&seq=207&q1=race}}{{cite web|title=Raleigh Lectures on History|website=The British Academy|url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectures/listings/raleigh-lectures-history/}}

Bryce chaired the Conference on the Reform of the Second Chamber in 1917–1918.{{cite journal|last=Lees-Smith|first=H. B.|author-link =Hastings Lees-Smith| date=October 1922|title=The Bryce Conference on the Reform of the House of Lords|journal=Economica|issue=6|pages=220–227|doi=10.2307/2548315 |url=https://ia600708.us.archive.org/view_archive.php?archive=/28/items/crossref-pre-1923-scholarly-works/10.2307%252F2345371.zip&file=10.2307%252F2548315.pdf|jstor=2548315}}

Personal life

File:Memorial to Viscount Bryce, Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.jpg

File:Lady Bryce (nee Elizabeth Ashton).jpgBryce married Elizabeth Marion, daughter of Thomas Ashton and sister of Thomas Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde, in 1889. Lord and Lady Bryce had no children.{{cite book |title=Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, Volume 1 |date=1937 |publisher=Burke's Peerage Ltd. }}

Bryce died while on holiday on 22 January 1922, aged 83, of heart failure in his sleep at The Victoria Hotel, Sidmouth, Devon, on the last of his lifelong travels. The viscountcy died with him. He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, following which his ashes were buried near to his parents at Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh.

Lady Bryce is recalled in the memoirs of Captain Peter Middleton, grandfather of Catherine, Princess of Wales who wrote, "Nor will I forget my terror of Lady Bryce", who was the aunt of his mother's first cousins, sisters Elinor and Elizabeth Lupton.{{cite news |last1=Joseph |first1=Claudia |title=We kid you not! Kate really does descend from goat breeders (but very posh ones) |url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/1576303/kate-middleton-news-duchess-of-cambridge-genealogy-ancestors-goat-farmers |access-date=8 March 2022 |publisher=UK Daily Express |date=6 March 2022}}{{cite web |last1=Lupton |first1=Francis |title=The Next Generation: A Sequel to The Lupton Family in Leeds by C.A. Lupton by Francis Lupton 2001 |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lupton_family_crest.jpg |publisher=Wm Harrison and Sons |year=2001 |access-date=8 July 2019}}

Lady Bryce died in 1939. Her papers are held at the Bodleian Library.{{cite book |title=Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts – Papers of Lady Bryce, 1869–1939 |publisher=Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University |url=https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repositories/2/archival_objects/61678 |access-date=13 December 2020}}

Memorials

There is a large monument to Viscount Bryce in the southwest section of the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh, facing north at the west end of the central east–west avenue. His ashes are buried there.

There is a bust of Viscount Bryce in Trinity Church on Broadway, near Wall Street in New York. A similar bust is in the U.S. Capitol Building and there is a commemorative Bryce Park in Washington DC.

In 1965 the James Bryce Chair of Government was endowed at the University of Glasgow. "Government" was changed to "Politics" in 1970.{{cite web|url=https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH0081&type=P|title=James Bryce 1st Viscount Bryce|work=The University of Glasgow Story|publisher=University of Glasgow|access-date=3 October 2021|archive-date=19 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220519052741/https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH0081&type=P|url-status=dead}}

In 2013 the Ulster History Circle unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to him, near his birthplace in Belfast.{{cite web|url=https://ulsterhistorycircle.org.uk/james-viscount-bryce/|title=James Viscount Bryce|date=11 April 2015|publisher=Ulster History Circle|access-date=3 October 2021}}

On the occasion of the 160th anniversary of Bryce's birth, a small street off of Baghramyan Avenue in Yerevan, Armenia was named "James Bryce Street" in 1998.{{Cite web |date=1998-03-26 |title=ՋԵՅՄՍ ԲՐԱՅՍԻ ԾՆՆԴՅԱՆ 160-ԱՄՅԱԿԻՆ ԵՎ ՅՈՀԱՆՆԵՍ ԼԵՓՍԻՈՒՍԻ ԾՆՆԴՅԱՆ 140-ԱՄՅԱԿԻՆ ՆՎԻՐՎԱԾ ՄԻՋՈՑԱՌՈՒՄՆԵՐԻ ԿԱԶՄԱԿԵՐՊՄԱՆ ՄԱՍԻՆ |url=http://www.irtek.am/views/act.aspx?tid=4207 |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=www.irtek.am |language=hy}}

Publications

File:1st Viscount Bryce 1893.jpg

  • The Holy Roman Empire, First edition 1864 revised edition 1904, many reprints.See [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44101 online copy]
  • Report on the Condition of Education in Lancashire, 1867
  • The Trade Marks Registration Act, with Introduction and Notes on Trade Mark Law, 1877
  • Transcaucasia and Ararat, 1877
  • The American Commonwealth, 1888,{{cite journal|title=Review of The American Commonwealth by James Bryce|journal=The Quarterly Review|date=July 1889|volume=169|pages=253–286|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000900316;view=1up;seq=267}} [https://archive.org/stream/americancommonw18brycgoog#page/n5/mode/2up Volume I], [https://archive.org/stream/americancommonw14brycgoog#page/n4/mode/2up Volume II], [https://archive.org/stream/americancommonw22brycgoog#page/n14/mode/2up Volume III]
  • Impressions of South Africa, 1897
  • Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 1901, [https://archive.org/details/studiesinhistor03brycgoog Volume I], [https://archive.org/details/studiesinhistor02brycgoog Volume II]
  • Studies in Contemporary Biography, 1903 See [https://archive.org/stream/studiesincontemp00bryc#page/n7/mode/2up online copy].{{cite journal|title=Review of Studies in Contemporary Biography by James Bryce|journal=The Athenaeum|issue=3939|date=April 25, 1903|pages=522–523|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oKA5AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA522}}
  • [https://archive.org/stream/hindrancestogoo00brycgoog#page/n6/mode/2up The Hindrances to Good Citizenship, 1909] Reissued by Transaction Publishers, 1993, edited and with a new Introduction by Howard G. Schneiderman
  • [https://archive.org/stream/southamericaobse00bryciala#page/n5/mode/2up South America: Observations and Impressions 1912]
  • {{cite book |title= University and Historical Addresses: Delivered During a Residence in the United States as Ambassador of Great Britain |year= 1913 |place= New York |publisher= Macmillan |url= https://archive.org/details/universityhistor00bryc/page/n5 |access-date= 12 March 2019 |via=Internet Archive}}
  • The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–16, 1916
  • [https://archive.org/stream/essaysandaddres01brycgoog#page/n6/mode/2up Essays and Addresses in War Time, 1918]
  • Modern Democracies, 1921 [https://archive.org/stream/moderndemocraci07brycgoog#page/n8/mode/2up Volume I], [https://archive.org/stream/moderndemocracie02bryc#page/n7/mode/2up Volume II]

His Studies in History and Jurisprudence (1901) and Studies in Contemporary Biography (1903) were republications of essays.

=Selected articles=

  • [https://archive.org/stream/fortnightlyrevi05unkngoog#page/n386/mode/2up "The Future of English Universities,"] The Fortnightly Review, Vol. XXXIX, 1883.
  • [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev39unkngoog#page/n858/mode/2up "An Ideal University,"] The Contemporary Review, Vol. XLV, June 1884.
  • [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev55unkngoog#page/n436/mode/2up "The Relations of History and Geography,"] The Contemporary Review, Vol. XLIX, January/June 1886.
  • [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev25unkngoog#page/n22/mode/2up "An Age of Discontent,"] The Contemporary Review, Vol. LIX, January 1891.
  • “[http://www.jstor.org/stable/25102288 Thoughts on the Negro Problem].” The North American Review 153, no. 421 (1891): 641–60.
  • [https://archive.org/stream/contemporaryrev59unkngoog#page/n140/mode/2up "The Migrations of the Races of Men Considered Historically,"] The Contemporary Review, Vol. LXII, July 1892.
  • [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b3508917;view=1up;seq=181 "The Teaching of Civic Duty,"] Educational Review, Vol. VI, 1893.
  • [http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=cent;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=Woman%20Suffrage;rgn=full%20text;view=image;cc=cent;seq=0469;idno=cent0056-3;node=cent0056-3%3A17 "Equality,"] The Century; A Popular Quarterly, Vol. LVI, No. 3, July 1898.
  • [https://archive.org/stream/atlantic100bostuoft#page/144/mode/2up "What is Progress?,"] The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. C, 1907.

Famous quotations

  • "Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong."
  • "No government demands so much from the citizen as Democracy and none gives back so much."
  • "Life is too short for reading inferior books."
  • "Excessive anger against human stupidity is itself one of the most provoking forms of stupidity."

See also

"A Wine of Wizardry" - Poem by George Sterling which Bryce indirectly made controversial.

References

{{Reflist|30em}}

Further reading

  • "Lord Bryce’s Report on Turkish Atrocities in Armenia." Current History 5#2 (1916), pp. 321–34, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/45327055 online]
  • Auchincloss, Louis. "Lord Bryce" American Heritage (Apr/May1981) 32#3 pp 98–104.
  • Barker, Ernest. "Lord Bryce" English Historical Review 37#146, (1922), pp. 219–24, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/552355 online].
  • Becker, Carl. "Lord Bryce on modern democracies." Political Science Quarterly 36.4 (1921): 663–675 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2142389.pdf online].
  • Bradshaw, Katherine A. "The Misunderstood Public Opinion of James Bryce." Journalism History 28.1 (2002): 16–25.
  • Brock, William Ranulf. "James Bryce and the Future." Proceedings of the British Academy (2002), Vol. 88, pp. 3–27.
  • DeFleur, Margaret H. "James Bryce's 19th-Century Theory of Public Opinion in the Contemporary Age of New Communications Technologies." Mass Communication and Society 1.1-2 (1998): 63–84.
  • Fisher, H.A.L. James Bryce (2 vol 1927); scholarly biography; [https://archive.org/details/jamesbryceviscou00fish/page/n5/mode/2up vol 1 online]
  • Hammack, David C. "Elite Perceptions of Power in the Cities of the United States, 1880-1900: The Evidence of James Bryce, Moisei Ostrogorski, and Their American Informants." Journal of Urban History 4.4 (1978): 363–396.
  • Hanson, Russell L. "Tyranny of the majority or fatalism of the multitude? Bryce on Democracy in America," in America Through European Eyes. British and French Reflections on the New World from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed by Aurelian Craiutu and Jeffrey C. Isaac (Penn State UP, 2009) pp. 213–36.
  • Harvie, Christopher. "Ideology and Home Rule: James Bryce, A. V. Dicey and Ireland, 1880-1887." English Historical Review 91#359, (1976), pp. 298–314, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/566173 online].
  • Ions, Edmund. James Bryce and American Democracy, 1870–1922 (Macmillan, 1968). [https://archive.org/details/jamesbryceameric0000ions/page/n5/mode/2up online]
  • Keller, Morton. "James Bryce and America," The Wilson Quarterly 124 (1988), pp. 86–95. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/40257378. online]
  • Lambert, Robert A.. "James Bryce: His Access Campaign in Scotland, His Legacy and His Critics." in Contested Mountains: Nature, Development and Environment in the Cairngorms Region of Scotland, 1880–1980 (White Horse Press, 2001), pp. 60–73, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2c3k1ps.9 online].
  • Lefcowitz, Allan B., et al. "James Bryce’s First Visit to America: The New England Sections of His 1870 Journal and Related Correspondence." New England Quarterly 50#2, (1977), pp. 314–31, [https://doi.org/10.2307/364175 online].
  • Lessoff, Alan. "Progress before modernization: Foreign interpretations of American development in James Bryce's generation." American Nineteenth Century History 1.2 (2000): 69–96.
  • McCulloch, Gary. "Sensing the realities of English middle-class education: James Bryce and the Schools Inquiry Commission, 1865–1868." History of Education 40.5 (2011): 599–613.
  • Maddox, Graham. "James Bryce: Englishness and Federalism in America and Australia." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 34.1 (2004): 53–69. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3331156. online]
  • Monger, David. "Networking against Genocide during the First World War: the international network behind the British Parliamentary report on the Armenian Genocide." Journal of Transatlantic Studies (2018) 16#3, pp. 295–316.
  • Pollard, A. F. "Lord Bryce and Modern Democracies." History 7.28 (1923): 256–265 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24399968 online].
  • Pombeni, Paolo. "Starting in reason, ending in passion. Bryce, Lowell, Ostrogorski and the problem of democracy." Historical Journal 37.2 (1994): 319–341.
  • Posner, Russell M. "The Lord and the Drayman: James Bryce vs. Denis Kearney." California Historical Quarterly 50#3 (1971), pp. 277–84, [https://doi.org/10.2307/25157336 online].
  • Prochaska, Frank. Eminent Victorians on American Democracy: The View from Albion (Oxford University Press, 2012).
  • Robbins Keith. "History and politics: the career of James Bryce." Journal of Contemporary History 7.3 (1972): 37–52.
  • Robbins, Keith G. "Lord Bryce and the First World War." Historical Journal 10.2 (1967): 255–278. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637865 online]
  • {{cite book |last=Seaman |first=John T. Jr. |title=A Citizen of the World: The Life of James Bryce |location=London/New York |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-84511-126-7 }}
  • {{cite journal|author=Steinberg, Oded Y.|url=https://journals.openedition.org/eac/1913|title=The Confirmation of the Worst Fears: James Bryce, British Diplomacy and the Armenian Massacres of 1894-1896|journal=Études Arméniennes Contemporaines|year=2018|issue=11|pages=15–39|doi=10.4000/eac.1913|doi-access=free}}
  • Steinberg, Oded Y. "Teutonism and Romanism: James Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire." in Race, Nation, History: Anglo-German Thought in the Victorian Era (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), pp. 134–56, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16t6gpk.8 online].
  • Tulloch, Hugh. James Bryce's 'American Commonwealth: The Anglo-American Background (1988).
  • Wilson, Francis G. "James Bryce on Public Opinion: Fifty Years Later." Public Opinion Quarterly 3#3 (1939), pp. 420–35, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2744964 online].
  • Wilson, Trevor. "Lord Bryce’s Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities in Belgium, 1914-15." Journal of Contemporary History 14#3, (1979), pp. 369–83, [http://www.jstor.org/stable/260012 online].
  • Wright, John SF. "Anglicizing the United States Constitution: James Bryce's Contribution to Australian Federalism." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 31.4 (2001): 107–130. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/3331064 online].