Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Which position did James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce hold from Feb 1886 to Jul 1886?
James Bryce , 1st Viscount Bryce James Bryce , 1st Viscount Bryce , ( 10 May 1838 – 22 January 1922 ) was an Ulster-born academic , jurist , historian , and Liberal politician . Background and education . Bryce was born in Arthur Street in Belfast , County Antrim , in Ulster , Ireland , the son of Margaret , daughter of James Young of Whiteabbey , and James Bryce , LLD , from near Coleraine , County Londonderry . The first eight years of his life were spent residing at his grandfathers Whiteabbey residence , often playing for hours on the tranquil picturesque shoreline . Annan Bryce was his younger brother . He was educated under his uncle Reuben John Bryce at the Belfast Academy , Glasgow High School , the University of Glasgow , the University of Heidelberg and Trinity College , Oxford . He was elected a fellow of Oriel College , Oxford , in 1862 and was called to the Bar , Lincolns Inn , in 1867 . His days as a student at the University of Heidelberg 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 the German Empire , Britain and the United States together . For him , the United States , the British Empire and Germany were natural friends . Academic career . Bryce was admitted to the Bar and practised law in London for a few years but was soon called back to Oxford to become Regius Professor of Civil Law , a position he held from 1870 to 1893 . From 1870 to 1875 he was also Professor of Jurisprudence at Owens College , Manchester . His reputation as an historian had been made as early as 1864 by his work on the Holy Roman Empire . In 1872 Bryce travelled to Iceland to see the land of the Icelandic sagas , as he was a great admirer of Njáls saga . In 1876 he ventured through the Russian empire to Mount Ararat , climbed above the tree line and found a piece of hand-hewn timber , long and thick . He agreed that the evidence fit the Armenian Churchs belief that it was from Noahs Ark and offered no other explanations . 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 ) . Member of Parliament . In 1880 Bryce , an ardent Liberal in politics , was elected to the House of Commons as member for the constituency of Tower Hamlets in London . In 1885 he was returned for South Aberdeen and he was re-elected there on succeeding occasions . He remained a Member of Parliament until 1907 . Bryces 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 the Royal Commission on Secondary Education . In 1885 he was made Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under William Ewart Gladstone but had to leave office after the Liberals were defeated in the general election later that year . In 1892 he joined Gladstones last cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time . In 1894 Bryce was appointed President of the Board of Trade in the new cabinet of Lord Rosebery , 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 of Impressions of that country that had considerable influence in Liberal circles when the Second Boer War was being discussed . 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 . The still radical Bryce was made Chief Secretary for Ireland in Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannermans cabinet in 1905 and remained in office throughout 1906 . 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 Peoples Budget , which he regarded as making unwarranted concessions to socialism . Ambassador to the United States . In February 1907 Bryce was appointed British Ambassador to the United States . He held this office until 1913 , and was very efficient in strengthening Anglo-American ties and friendship . 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 the First World War , even though Bernstorff helped to keep the United States from declaring war until 1917 . Bryce quickly became well known in America for his book The American Commonwealth ( 1888 ) , a thorough examination of the institutions of the United States from the point of view of a historian and constitutional lawyer . Bryce painstakingly reproduced the travels of Alexis de Tocqueville , who wrote Democracy 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 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 . The work was heavily used in academia , partly as a result of Bryces close friendships with men such as James B . Angell , President of the University of Michigan and successively Charles W . Eliot and Abbott Lawrence Lowell at Harvard . The work also became a key medium for certain Americans to popularise a view of American history as distinctively Anglo-Saxon . Peerage . In 1914 , after his retirement as Ambassador and his return to Britain , Bryce was raised to the peerage as Viscount Bryce of Dechmount in the County of Lanark . Thus he became a member of the House of Lords , the powers of which had been curtailed by the Parliament Act 1911 . First World War . Following the outbreak of the First World War Bryce was commissioned by Prime Minister H . H . Asquith to write what became known as The Bryce Report in which he described German atrocities in Belgium . The report was published in 1915 and was damning of German behaviour against civilians . Bryces account was confirmed by Vernon Lyman Kellogg , the Director of the American Commission for Relief in Belgium , who told the New York Times that the German military had enslaved hundreds of thousands of Belgian workers , and abused and maimed many of them in the process . Bryce strongly condemned the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman 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 historian Arnold J . Toynbee , he produced a documentary record of the massacres that was published as a Blue Book by the British government in 1916 . In 1921 Bryce wrote that the Armenian genocide had also claimed half of the population of the Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire and that similar cruelties had been perpetrated upon them . Later life . During the last years of his life Bryce served as a judge at the International Court in The Hague , supported the establishment of the League of Nations and published a book , Modern Democracy ( 1921 ) , in which he was rather critical of post-war democracy . Honours and other public appointments . Bryce received numerous academic honours from home and foreign universities . In September 1901 , he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Dartmouth College , and in October 1902 he received an honorary degree ( LLD ) from the University of St Andrews . He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1894 . In earlier life , he was a notable mountain climber , ascending Mount Ararat in 1876 , and published a volume on Transcaucasia and Ararat in 1877 ; in 1899 to 1901 , he was the president of the Alpine Club . From his Caucasian journey , he brought back a deep distrust of Ottoman rule in Asia Minor and a distinct sympathy for the Armenian people . In 1882 , Bryce established the National Liberal Club , whose members , in its first three decades , included fellow founder Prime Minister Gladstone , George Bernard Shaw , David Lloyd George , H . H . Asquith and many other prominent Liberal candidates and MPs such as Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell . In April 1882 Bryce was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society . In 1907 , he was made a Member of the Order of Merit by King Edward VII . At the Kings death , Bryce arranged his Washington Memorial Service . At the time of Bryces memorial service at Westminster Abbey , his wife , Elizabeth , received condolences from King George V , who regarded Lord Bryce as an old friend and trusted counsellor to whom I could always turn . Queen Victoria had said that Bryce was one of the best informed men on all subjects I have ever met . From 1907 through 1908 , Bryce served as the president of the American Political Science Association . He was the fourth person to hold this office . He was president of the British Academy from 1913 to 1917 . In 1919 he delivered the British Academys inaugural Raleigh Lecture on History , on World History . In 2013 , the Ulster History Circle unveiled a blue plaque dedicated to him , near his birthplace in Belfast . Personal life . Bryce married Elizabeth Marion , daughter of Thomas Ashton and sister of Lord Ashton , 1st Baron Ashton of Hyde , in 1889 . They had no children . Bryce died on 22 January 1922 , aged 83 , in Sidmouth , Devon , on the last of his lifelong travels . The viscountcy died with him . He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium . There is a large monument to Viscount Bryce in the southwest section of the Grange Cemetery in Edinburgh , facing north at the west end of the central east–west avenue . It is presumed that his ashes are buried there . There is a bust of Viscount Bryce in Trinity Church on Broadway , near Wall Street . A similar bust is in the U.S . Capitol Building and there is a commemorative Bryce Park in Washington DC . Lady Bryce died in 1939 . Her papers are held at the Bodleian Library . In 1965 the James Bryce Chair of Government was endowed at the University of Glasgow . Government was changed to Politics in 1970 . Publications . - The Flora of the Island of Aran , 1859 - The Holy Roman Empire , 1864 - Report on the Condition of Education in Lancashire , 1867 - The Trade Marks Registration Act , with Introduction and Notes on Trade Mark Law , 1877 - Transcaucasia and Ararat , 1877 - The American Commonwealth , 1888 , Volume I , Volume II , Volume III - Impressions of South Africa , 1897 - Studies in History and Jurisprudence , 1901 , Volume I , Volume II - Studies in Contemporary Biography , 1903 - The Hindrances to Good Citizenship , 1909 Reissued by Transaction Publishers , 1993 , edited and with a new Introduction by Howard G . Schneiderman - South America : Observations and Impressions 1912 - The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915–16 , 1916 - Essays and Addresses in War Time , 1918 - Modern Democracies , 1921 Volume I , Volume II His Studies in History and Jurisprudence ( 1901 ) and Studies in Contemporary Biography ( 1903 ) were republications of essays . Selected articles . - The Future of English Universities , The Fortnightly Review , Vol . XXXIX , 1883 . - An Ideal University , The Contemporary Review , Vol . XLV , June 1884 . - The Relations of History and Geography , The Contemporary Review , Vol . XLIX , January/June 1886 . - An Age of Discontent , The Contemporary Review , Vol . LIX , January 1891 . - The Migrations of the Races of Men Considered Historically , The Contemporary Review , Vol . LXII , July 1892 . - The Teaching of Civic Duty , Educational Review , Vol . VI , 1893 . - Equality , The Century ; A Popular Quarterly , Vol . LVI , No . 3 , July 1898 . - What is Progress? , The Atlantic Monthly , Vol . C , 1907 . Famous quotations . - Patriotism consists not in waving the flag , but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong . - No government demands so much from the citizen as Democracy and none gives back so much . - Life is too short for reading inferior books . External links . - James Bryce , Two Historical Studies : The Ancient Roman Empire and the British Empire in India ; Diffusion of Roman and English Law Throughout the World ( 1914 ) - Text of the Bryce report on German atrocities - Viscount James Bryce at The Online Library of Liberty - James Bryce , preface to Shall This Nation Die? , by Joseph Naayem , New York : 1921 , quoted in Native Christians Massacred , The Ottoman Genocide of the Assyrians during World War I , 1.3 Genocide Studies and Prevention 326 ( 2006 ) - Atrocities Cured Pacifist , The New York Times , 20 April 1918 , at 11 - The American Commonwealth , with an Introduction by Gary L . McDowell ( Indianapolis : Liberty Fund , 1995 ) . 2 Vols . See original text in The Online Library of Liberty .