• News
• Links
• Partners
• Site map

 JAMES BRYCE (Bryce James) (1838-1922), Viscount, English statesman, lawyer, historian. Honorary Doctor of the University of Oxford (1914). He was repeatedly elected as a member of Parliament by Liberal Party and held senior positions in various governments; Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Trade, Secretary for Ireland , the British Ambassador to the United States of America. In 1876 he founded the Anglo-Armenian Society and as the Chairman of the society he visited the Caucasus and Armenia (climbed the Mount Ararat) in the autumn of the same year. He wrote his impressions in the book "Transcaucasia and Ararat" (1877). 

In 1880, Bryce made another trip to Armenia, visited Constantinople and Smyrna (met Matevos Mamuryan, Nerses Varzhapetyan), in 1893 he founded the Anglo-Armenian Association in London. During the pogroms of Armenians in 1894 he published articles in defense of the Armenians in British and American press. Bryce was one of the first statesmen in England who responded to the tragedy of the Armenian people of 1915, actively participated in the creation of the British-Armenian Red Cross and Refugee Fund.

In 1916, under the editorship of Bryce and with a long preface a collection of documents "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-1916." ("The Blue Book") was published in London.  There were numerous reports and testimonies on Armenian killings and deportations, that proved the Young Turks' nationalistic, anti-Armenian policiy. Bryce has also made public statements in defense of the Armenians.

In particular, in the speech made in the House of Lords on February 1920, Bryce blamed the Kemalists in the persecution of the Armenians of Cilicia, condemned Britain's post-war policy in the Armenian issue. Bryce had close relations with the Armenian public and political figures, in particular with Arshak Chopanyan and Poghos Nubar Pasha.

J. Torosyan

Source-Encyclopedia “The Armenian Question”, Yerevan, 1996.