John Duncan Inverarity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Commemorative portrait in the Bombay High Court

John Duncan Inverarity (7 January 1847, Bombay – 4 December 1923, Bombay[1][2]) was a barrister and naturalist who worked in Bombay.

John Duncan Inverarity was son of Jonathan Duncan Inverarity (1812 - 1882) and Maria Martha Willoughby (d. 1871) and was born in Bombay in 1847. He went to study at Cheltenham College in England.[3] He went to study law, and his contemporaries included Arthur Cohen and Spencer Perceval Butler. He joined as a Barrister in Bombay in 1869. He was called to bar at the Inner Temple in 1870.[4] Apart from being a barrister in the Bombay High Court he was a keen outdoorsman and big game hunter and one of the early members of the Bombay Natural History Society, serving as its vice president from 1897 till his death.[5] He contributed short notes to A.O. Hume's Stray Feathers,[6][7] the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society on the tiger, water buffalo, and entries on tiger hunting in the Encyclopedia of Sport (1898).[8][9][10] He was attacked by a lioness that he was hunting near Berbera in 1889, an incident that gathered considerable news coverage.[11] He recounted the event in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society[12] and wrote about how surprisingly painless the attack was.[13] He married Margaret Eweretta, elder daughter of F.G. Forsyth-Grant of Kincardineshire in 1896.[14]

In James Joyce's book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the main character, Stephen Daedalus, owns a copy of Horace's verses owned by the brothers John and William Duncan Inverarity with notes in Latin pencilled on the margin.

Inverarity died at Bombay and is buried at the Sewree Christian Cemetery.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Anon. (1924). "Obituary: John Duncan Inverarity". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 29: 822–823.
  2. ^ "Rosemount Man Dies in India". Dundee Courier. 7 December 1923. p. 8 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. ^ Hunter, Andrew Alexander, ed. (1890). Cheltenham College Register 1841-1889. London: George Bell and Sons. p. 153.
  4. ^ "Calls to the bar". The Law Magazine and Law Review. 29: 886. 1870.
  5. ^ "Something new about the tiger". The Press. 23 August 1888. p. 6.
  6. ^ Inverarity, J.D. (1883). "The Sarus in Tanna and other notes". Stray Feathers. 10 (5): 522–523.
  7. ^ Inverarity, J.D. (1878). "On Scolopax rusticola and Gallinago stenura near Bombay". Stray Feathers. 7: 525-526.
  8. ^ Inverarity, JD (1888). "Unscientific notes on the tiger". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 3 (3): 144–154.
  9. ^ Inverarity, JD (1895). "The Indian Wild Buffalo". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 10: 41–52.
  10. ^ "Tiger". The Encyclopaedia of Sport. Volume 2. London: Lawrence and Bullen. 1898. pp. 464–470.
  11. ^ "The Bombay Barrister and the Lioness. A terrible encounter". The Star. 17 December 1889. p. 4 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  12. ^ Inverarity, J.D. (1891). "Notes on the mammalia of Somali Land". Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. 6: 457–478.
  13. ^ Ali, Salim (1981). "Bombay Natural History Society- the founders, the builders and the guardians. Part 2". Bombay Natural History Society. 78 (1): 232–239.
  14. ^ Fox-Davies, Arthur Charles, ed. (1929). Armorial Families. A directory of gentlemen of coat-armor (7th ed.). London: Hurst and Blackett. p. 1028.

External links[edit]