BRYCE, JAMES BRYCE, 1sT VISCOUNT British statesman, jurist and author, was born at Belfast on May Jo, 1838, of a Scottish family. His father, James Bryce (d. 1877), was a schoolmaster, and moved in 1846 to Glasgow, where James attended the high school and then the university. In 1857 Bryce went to Trinity College, Oxford, where he had an extraordinarily brilliant record, and in 1862 was elected a fellow of Oriel. When he began to read for the Bar he had already published his Holy Roman Empire (1864), the brilliant piece of historical work which had won the Arnold Historical Essay prize in 1863, and which is still indispensable to the student.
Bryce was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1867; in the next year he began to lecture on law at Owen's college, Manches ter, and in 1870, became Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, a position which he held until 1893. "Bryce, who had sat at the feet of Van Vangerow in Heidelberg, conceived it," says Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, "to be part of his duty to awaken an interest in the civil law not as an antiquarian curiosity, but as a great power in the moulding of European thought and history." He practised at the Bar until 1882. In 1870 he had made the first of a series of visits to America, in which he laid the foundations of his knowl edge of American institutions and American life, and in 1876 a visit to Caucasus, Armenia and Constantinople, the beginning of his lifelong interest in the Armenians. He founded the Anglo Armenian Society, and after he entered the House of Commons (for Tower Hamlets), he constantly urged their cause.
Bryce's learning and firsthand knowledge of many countries made him indispensable in the councils of the Liberal party, but he never carried in the House of Commons the weight of less able men with the true "parliamentary gift." He had much in common with Mr. Gladstone, not least on the literary side. In the autumn of 1885 he went to his native town of Belfast to tell Ulster Liberals of the coming proposals for Irish Home Rule, and in the Gladstone Government of Jan.–Aug. i886 he was under-secretary for foreign affairs. The next year was spent on The American Commonwealth (published 1888) on which he had been working since 1883. This book was the first important work on the subject, and is still the classic in its field. Bryce brought to his task not only historical knowledge, but the trained mind of the jurist, and the sympathy of a friend of the American people and an admirer of their institutions. In the Gladstone Govern ment of 1892 he was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and in the reconstructed Rosebery cabinet of 1894 president of the Board of Trade. He presided over the important commission on sec ondary education in 1894 which laid the foundation of the English system.
After the defeat of the Liberal Government he travelled (1895) in South Africa, visiting the outlying territories as well as the Cape and the Boer republics; his book Impressions of South Africa appeared in 1897. He protested against the handling of the negotiations with the Boer republics in the following years, and in the split in the Liberal party which followed the outbreak of war in 1899 Bryce ranged himself with Campbell-Bannerman in the campaign against Mr. Chamberlain and his policy. Through out the war Bryce was an uncompromising fighter on the unpopu lar side. In the Campbell-Bannerman cabinet of 1905 Bryce was chief secretary for Ireland, and in 1907 the prime minister sent him as ambassador to Washington. For six years Bryce was the interpreter of Great Britain to the American people. The appoint ment of a politician, outside the diplomatic service, was criticized at the time, but it was a most happy one. Bryce had many friends in political, learned and literary circles in America, and he was known throughout the States as the author of the classic work on the American Commonwealth, on its institutions, its laws, and its structure. He had already paid seven visits to America, the last being in 1904 when he had delivered an address at the St. Louis Exhibition and the Godkin lectures at Harvard and Colum bia. While Bryce was at Washington the difficulty between Amer ica and Newfoundland about fisheries was referred to The Hague Tribunal for final settlement. 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 Can ada to confer with the governor-general and his ministers. He was criticized, both in England and in Canada, for forwarding, in 1911, in the course of his duties as ambassador, an arrangement for reciprocity between the two North American States; but the general election, which substituted Sir R. Borden as prime minis ter of Canada for Sir W. Laurier, put an end to the negotiations. At the close of his embassy he told the Canadians that probably three-fourths of the business of the British embassy at Washing ton was Canadian, and of the 11 or 12 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 Bering Sea, and many other matters." He could boast that he left the relations between the United States and Canada on an excellent footing.
For his services he was created a viscount in 1913, and in 1914 his old university, Oxford, gave him an honorary degree. He was extremely reluctant in the last days of July 1914 to contemplate the possibility of war with Germany; but the violation of Belgian neutrality and the outrages committed in Belgium by German troops turned the scale for him. He was chairman of the com mittee to consider the evidence of such outrages not only in Bel gium but in France. He welcomed warmly the entrance of the Americans into the World War in the spring of 1917.
He presided over a committee set up in that year to consider the reconstruction of the House of Lords, and spent much la bour in a task which all parties were disposed to shirk. During these latter years he was largely engaged on the composition of his book on Modern Democracies, a comparative study of a cer tain number of popular governments in their actual working, for which he had been gathering material for several years before the war. Lord Bryce married, in 1880, Elizabeth Marion, daugh ter of Thomas Ashton, of Hyde, and sister of the 1st Lord Ashton of Hyde. He received the Order of Merit in 1907 and a G.C.V.O. in 1918. His last speech in the House of Lords was on the Irish treaty in Dec. 1921, and his last public address (apart from ad dresses to learned societies) was an appeal on behalf of the Ar menians at the Mansion House, London. He died at Sidmouth on Jan. 22, 1922.
Bryce's works are The Holy Roman Empire (1864) ; Trade Marks, Registration Act and Trade Mark Law (1877) ; Transcaucasia and Ararat (i877) ; The American Commonwealth (i888) ; Impressions of South Africa (1897) ; Studies in History and Jurisprudence (i9oi) ; Studies in Contemporary Biography (1903) ; South America (1912) ; University and Historical Addresses (1913) ; Modern Democracies (1921) ; International Relations (1922). See H. A. L. Fisher, James Bryce (1927).