JAMES ARTHUR 



1842-1930 



Born in Ireland and brought up in Glasgow, Scotland, James Ar- 

 thur came to New York in 1871. Trained in mechanics and gear- 

 cutting, he pursued a career in the manufacture and repair of ma- 

 chinery, during the course of which he founded a number of suc- 

 cessful businesses and received patents on a variety of mechanical 

 devices. His mechanical interests evolved early into a lifelong pas- 

 sion for horology, the science of measuring time, and he both made 

 some remarkable clocks and assembled an important collection of 

 old and rare timepieces. 



Early in the 20th century James Arthur became associated with 

 the American Museum of Natural History, and began to expand his 

 interest in time to evolutionary time, and his interest in mechanisms 

 to that most precise and delicate mechanism of them all, the human 

 brain. The ultimate expression of his fascination with evolution and 

 the brain was James Arthur's bequest to the American Museum per- 

 mitting the establishment of the James Arthur Lectures on the Evo- 

 lution of the Human Brain. The first James Arthur Lecture was 

 delivered on March 15, 1932, two years after Mr. Arthur's death, 

 and the series has since continued annually, without interruption. 



