James Bryce (Belfast)

James Bryce LLD FRSE (1806, in Killaig – 1877, in Inverfarigaig) was an Irish naturalist and geologist.

He was the third son of Rev James Bryce (1767–1857), and of Catherine Annan of Auchtermuchty in Fife, and was born at Killaig, near Coleraine, on 23 October 1806. He was educated first by his father and eldest brother, the Rev. Dr. Bryce, and afterwards at the university of Glasgow, where he graduated B.A. in 1828, having distinguished himself in classical studies.

In 1826, Bryce was appointed Master of the Mathematical and Commercial Department of Belfast Academical Institution. He was Secretary of the Belfast Natural History Society from its foundation.

He had intended to study for the bar, but, finding this beyond his means, adopted the profession of teaching, and became mathematical master in the Belfast Academy, a foundation school of considerable more in Ulster. In 1836, he married Margaret, daughter of James Young of Abbeyville, county Antrim, and in 1840 was appointed to the high school of Glasgow, the ancient public grammar school of that city, and held this office till his resignation in 1874. He was a brilliant and successful teacher both of mathematics and geography, but his special interest lay in the study of natural history.

He devoted himself to geological researches, first in the north of Ireland, and afterwards in Scotland and northern England. He began in 1834 to write and publish articles on the fossils of the lias, greensand, and chalk beds in Antrim (the first appeared in the 'Philosophical Magazine' for that year), and these having attracted the notice of Sir Roderick Murchison and Sir Charles Lyell. He was a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and a Fellow of the Geological Society of Dublin.

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