John Duncan Inverarity


John Duncan Inverarity was an eminent barrister and naturalist who worked in Bombay.
John Duncan Inverarity was son of Jonathan Duncan Inverarity and was born in Bombay in 1847. He went to study in England and studied at Cheltenham College. He joined as a Barrister in Bombay in 1869. He was called to bar at the Inner Temple in 1870. 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 Vice President of the Society from 1897 till his death. He contributed numerous short notes to the Journal of the BNHS on the tiger, water buffalo, as well as small game as well as entries on tiger hunting in the Encyclopedia of Sport. He was attacked by a lioness that he was hunting near Berbera and the incident gathered considerable news coverage. He recounted the event in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society and wrote about how surprisingly painless the attack was. He married Margaret Eweretta, elder daughter of F.G. Forsyth-Grant of Kincardineshire in 1896.
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.