The Right Honourable James Bryce, M.P. Professor, Lawyer and Politician

Viscount James Bryce, M.P. (1838-1922), Professor, Lawyer and Politician, was educated at the Glasgow High School and Glasgow University, then Trinity College, Oxford, he was a fellow of Oriel College from 1862-89. He left Oxford with a double First Class degree and public recognition for his essay on The Holy Roman Empire, which was published as a book in 1864. He was called to the Bar in 1867, joining the Northern Circuit, where he practiced until 1882. Bryce held numerous achievements and jobs throughout his life; he lectured on law at Manchester University (1868-74), was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford (1870-93), a Liberal M.P. for Tower Hamlets division (1880-5) and for South Aberdeen (1885-06). He was President of the Board of Trade (1894), Chairman of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education (1894-95), Chief Secretary for Ireland (1905-06) and was also British Ambassador in Washington (1907-13). He wrote a number of books on the subjects of history, travel and politics, including The American Commonwealth. He received the Order of Merit in 1907 and the K.C.V.O. in 1918, having been appointed a Viscount in 1913. He welcomed the entrance of the Americans in the First World War in 1917 and chaired the committee on reconstruction of the House of Lords later that same year. He was a keen mountaineer and botanist and a man of languages.

He has thought and travelled a good deal, writing of 'The American Continent', and other more or less obscure places and things; so that he naturally delights in Irish difficulties, longs to extend rural government, advocates the development of secondary education, upholds open spaces, is zealous for access to Scottish mountains, and full of anxiety to do something for the Americans.

Vanity Fair, 'Statesmen', No. 609, 1893.