The Viscount Bryce | |
|---|---|
 Bryce in 1902 | |
| British Ambassador tothe United States | |
| In office 1907–1913 | |
| Monarchs | Edward VII George V |
| Prime Minister | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman H. H. Asquith |
| Preceded by | Sir Henry Mortimer Durand |
| Succeeded by | Sir Cecil Spring Rice |
| Chief Secretary for Ireland | |
| In office 10 December 1905 (1905-12-10) – 23 January 1907 (1907-01-23) | |
| Monarch | Edward VII |
| Prime Minister | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman |
| Preceded by | Walter Long |
| Succeeded by | Augustine Birrell |
| President of the Board of Trade | |
| In office 28 May 1894 (1894-05-28) – 21 June 1895 (1895-06-21) | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | The Earl of Rosebery |
| Preceded by | A. J. Mundella |
| Succeeded by | Charles Thomson Ritchie |
| Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster | |
| In office 18 August 1892 (1892-08-18) – 28 May 1894 (1894-05-28) | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | William Ewart Gladstone |
| Preceded by | The Duke of Rutland |
| Succeeded by | The Lord Tweedmouth |
| Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs | |
| In office 7 February 1886 (1886-02-07) – 20 July 1886 (1886-07-20) | |
| Monarch | Victoria |
| Prime Minister | Gladstone |
| Preceded by | Hon. Robert Bourke |
| Succeeded by | Sir James Fergusson, Bt |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1838-05-10)10 May 1838 |
| Died | 22 January 1922(1922-01-22) (aged 83) |
| Political party | Liberal |
| Education | University of Glasgow Heidelberg University Trinity College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Profession | Academic |
| Signature |  |
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce,OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FBA (10 May 1838 – 22 January 1922), was a British academic, jurist, historian, andLiberal 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 vastBritish Empire to the United States. His intellectual influence was greatest inThe 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 theRoyal Commission on Secondary Education.[1]
Bryce was born in Arthur Street inBelfast,County Antrim, inUlster, the son of Margaret, daughter of James Young ofWhiteabbey, andJames Bryce, LLD, from nearColeraine,County Londonderry.[2] 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.[3] He was educated atGlasgow High School, where his father taught, and for a year under his uncle Reuben John Bryce at theBelfast Academy,[4]. From there he proceeded to theUniversity of Glasgow, andTrinity College, Oxford.
He was elected a fellow ofOriel College, Oxford, in 1862, without conforming to the Established Church, and may arguably be counted the first nonconformist college fellow at Oxford or Cambridge. He wascalled to the Bar,Lincoln's Inn, in 1867.[5] His days studying at theUniversity of Heidelberg underVangerow 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, theBritish Empire and Germany were "natural friends".[6]
Bryce was admitted to the Bar and practised law in London for a few years[7] but was soon called back to Oxford to becomeRegius Professor of Civil Law, a position he held from 1870 to 1893.[8] From 1870 to 1875 he was also Professor of Jurisprudence atOwens College, Manchester.[9][10] His reputation as a historian had been made as early as 1864 by his work on theHoly Roman Empire.[11]
In 1872 Bryce travelled to Iceland to see the land of theIcelandic sagas, as he was a great admirer ofNjáls saga. In 1876 he ventured through Russia and climbedMount Ararat, one of the first climbers to do so, and was wrily amused to be thought the first man since Noah to stand atop the mountain. There is no truth in the notion that he believed that he had found a relic of the Ark.
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).[12]
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In 1880 Bryce, an ardentLiberal in politics, was elected to the House of Commons as member for the constituency ofTower Hamlets in London. In 1885 he was returned forSouth Aberdeen and he was re-elected there on succeeding occasions. He remained a Member of Parliament until 1907.[13]
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 theRoyal Commission on Secondary Education. In 1885 he was madeUnder-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs underWilliam Ewart Gladstone but had to leave office after the Liberals were defeated in the general election later that year. In 1892 he joined Gladstone'slast cabinet asChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster[14] and was sworn of thePrivy Council at the same time.[15]
In 1894 Bryce was appointedPresident of the Board of Trade in the new cabinet ofLord Rosebery,[16] 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 ofImpressions of that country that had considerable influence in Liberal circles when theSecond Boer War was being discussed.[8] 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.[17]
The "still radical" Bryce was madeChief Secretary for Ireland in Prime Minister SirHenry Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet in 1905 and remained in office throughout 1906.[5] 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.[18]
Bryce had become well known in America for his bookThe American Commonwealth (1888), a thorough examination of the institutions of the United States from the point of view of a historian and constitutional lawyer.[8] Bryce painstakingly reproduced the travels ofAlexis de Tocqueville, who wroteDemocracy 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"[19] 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."[20] The work was heavily used in academia, partly as a result of Bryce's close friendships with men such asJames B. Angell, President of the University of Michigan and successivelyCharles W. Eliot andAbbott Lawrence Lowell at Harvard.[21] The work also became a key text for American writers seeking to popularise a view of American history as distinctively Anglo-Saxon.[22]The American Commonwealth contains Bryce's observation that "the enormous majority" of American women opposed their own right to vote.[23]
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In February 1907 Bryce was appointedAmbassador to the United States.[24] 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 theCourt 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 the United Kingdom. For the first time the United Kingdom responded in kind. Bryce, already favourably regarded in America as the author ofThe 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.[25]
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 theFirst World War, even though Bernstorff helped to keep the United States from declaring war until 1917.
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 theGovernor 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.[25]
In 1914, after his retirement as Ambassador and his return to Britain, Bryce was raised to the peerage asViscount Bryce,of Dechmount in the County of Lanark.[26] Thus he became a member of theHouse of Lords, the powers of which had been curtailed by theParliament Act 1911.
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.[25]Following the outbreak of the First World War Bryce was commissioned by Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith to write what became known asThe Bryce Report in which he described German atrocities in Belgium. The report was published in 1915 and was damning of German behaviour against civilians.[27] Bryce's account was confirmed byVernon Lyman Kellogg, the Director of the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, who told theNew York Times that the German military had enslaved hundreds of thousands of Belgian workers, and abused and maimed many of them in the process.[28]
Bryce strongly condemned theArmenian genocide in theOttoman 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 historianArnold J. Toynbee, he produced a documentary record of the massacres that was published as aBlue Book by the British government in 1916. In 1921 Bryce wrote that the Armenian genocide had also claimed half of the population of theAssyrians in the Ottoman Empire and that similar cruelties had been perpetrated upon them.[29][30]
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.[31]
Bryce had a distrust of current democratic practices seen as late as hisModern Democracy (1921), which was a comparative study of a certain number of popular governments in their actual working.[25] 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 theLeague of Nations.[32][33]
Bryce received numerous academic honours from home and foreign universities. In September 1901, he received the degree ofDoctor of Laws fromDartmouth College,[35] and in October 1902 he received an honorary degree (LLD) from theUniversity of St Andrews,[36] and in 1914 he received an honorary degree from Oxford.[25]He became a fellow of theRoyal Society in 1894.[37]
In earlier life, he was a notable mountain climber, ascendingMount Ararat in 1876, and published a volume onTranscaucasia and Ararat in 1877; in 1899 to 1901, he was the president of theAlpine Club.[8] From his Caucasian journey, he brought back a deep distrust ofOttoman rule inAsia Minor and a distinct sympathy for theArmenian people.[38]
In 1882, Bryce established theNational Liberal Club, whose members, in its first three decades, included fellow founderPrime Minister Gladstone,George Bernard Shaw,David Lloyd George,H. H. Asquith and many other prominent Liberal candidates and MP's such asWinston Churchill andBertrand Russell.[39][5] In April 1882 Bryce was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society.[40] He was elected an International Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1893 and an International Member of theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1895.[41][42]
In 1907 he was made a Member of theOrder of Merit byKing Edward VII,[43] At the King's death, Bryce arranged his Washington Memorial Service.[44] At the time of Bryce's memorial service atWestminster Abbey, his wife, Elizabeth, received condolences fromKing George V, who "regarded Lord Bryce as an old friend and trusted counsellor to whom I could always turn."[45][46]Queen Victoria had said that Bryce was "one of the best informed men on all subjects I have ever met".[47][48] In 1918 he was appointedGCVO.[25]
Bryce was president of theAmerican Political Science Association from 1907 to 1908. He was the fourth person to hold this office.[49] He was president of theBritish Academy from 1913 to 1917.[5] In 1919 he delivered the British Academy's inaugural Raleigh Lecture on History, on "World History".[50][51]
Bryce chaired theConference on the Reform of the Second Chamber in 1917–1918.[52]
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Bryce married Elizabeth Marion, daughter ofThomas Ashton and sister ofThomas Ashton, 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde, in 1889. Lord and Lady Bryce had no children.[53]
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 atGolders Green Crematorium, following which his ashes were buried near to his parents atGrange Cemetery,Edinburgh.[5]
Lady Bryce is recalled in the memoirs ofCaptain Peter Middleton, grandfather ofCatherine, Princess of Wales who wrote, "Nor will I forget my terror of Lady Bryce", who was the aunt of his mother's first cousins, sistersElinor and Elizabeth Lupton.[54][55]
Lady Bryce died in 1939. Her papers are held at theBodleian Library.[56]
There is a large monument to Viscount Bryce in the southwest section of the Grange Cemetery inEdinburgh, facing north at the west end of the central east–west avenue. His ashes are buried there.[5]
There is a bust of Viscount Bryce inTrinity 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.[57]
In 2013 theUlster History Circle unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to him, near his birthplace in Belfast.[58]
On the occasion of the 160th anniversary of Bryce's birth, a small street off ofBaghramyan Avenue inYerevan,Armenia was named "James Bryce Street" in 1998.[59]
HisStudies in History and Jurisprudence (1901) andStudies in Contemporary Biography (1903) were republications of essays.[8]
"A Wine of Wizardry" - Poem byGeorge Sterling which Bryce indirectly made controversial.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bryce, James".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 699. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1922)."Bryce, James Bryce".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 30 (12th ed.). London & New York: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company. p. 514.regarded Lord Bryce as an old friend and trusted counsellor to whom I could always turn.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forTower Hamlets 1880–1885 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forAberdeen South 1885–1907 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1886 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1892–1894 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Board of Trade 1894–1895 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chief Secretary for Ireland 1905–1907 | Succeeded by |
| Diplomatic posts | ||
| Preceded by | British Ambassador to the United States 1907–1913 | Succeeded by |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| New creation | Viscount Bryce 1914–1922 | Extinct |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
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