England Objects to the Treaty of Versailles, June 1, 1919

Journal of Liberal History

On This Day

22 January 1922

Death of James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, academic, cabinet minister and diplomat

Bryce served as Liberal MP for Tower Hamlets 1880-85 and Aberdeen South 1885-1907. He joined Gladstone’s last cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, serving as President of the Board of Trade under Lord Rosebery and Chief Secretary for Ireland under Campbell-Bannerman. In 1907 he was appointed Ambassador to the United States, a post he held until 1913. Outside politics Bryce had a distinguished academic career, serving as Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford University 1870-93. During the first world war Bryce chaired a commission to look at German atrocities in Belgium and, with Arnold Toynbee, investigated the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire.