Duncan was born in 1834 in Greenock. He was the son of a second-hand bookseller. In the early 1850s, James Duncan was studying chemistry at Glasgow. He had a break and took a boat trip from Greenock to the lochs and coastlines of Argyllshire. While on Loch Long, he conceived a unique method of refining sugar. He patented his idea for sugar refining. Then between 1858 and 1861, he became a partner of the Greenock firm of 'Duncan, Bell & Scott'. In 1854, the refinery was producing up to 50,000 tons. After 1861, he developed a factory in Silvertown, London, at Millbank 21 Mincing Lane, called the 'Clyde Wharf Refinery'. It was the largest and most profitable sugar refinery in London. He was always refining the process and learning different applications to keep his company at the top of the industry. At the peak of the business, they were producing up to 2 thousand tons of sugar a week. In 1878 he was elected fellow of the Society of Chemical Industry, later becoming its Vice-President. By 1879 he held the prestigious post of 'Chairman of the Sugar Refiners' Committee', and also became Vice-President of the 'Railway and Canal Traders' Union'. In 1884, cheap German sugar arrived in the UK, which was much cheaper than UK produced sugar. In August 1885, he published an article in the 'Sugar Cane' journal, titled 'The bounty on exportation of refined sugar from the United States'. In 1886, the unfair foreign competition meant that he had to close his London works of Clyde Wharf. He returned to Scotland, to manage the smaller refinery business in Greenock. After he retired, he spent time with his sister 'Mary Moubray' in Strone, and then spent the winter months in Italy.
Philanthropy
James Duncan's charitable work was widely known throughout Britain. he gave 20 per cent of his annual £100,000 salary to a range of causes, making him one of the most committed philanthropists of the time. He also built 2 churches for 2 different congregations. He was known as a major collector of fine art and was also a lender of pictures to annual exhibitions, including the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. In 1878, he was elected Vice-President of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. He regularly contributed works to European exhibitions, including the most prestigious at the Paris Salon, and to key international exhibitions of art and industry in France and Germany in the 1870s and 1880s. He was the first Scottish collector of an Impressionist work including purchasing in 1883, Renoir's painting 'Bay of Naples'. The painting was later lent to the National Gallery of Scotland by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for a summer exhibition about James Duncan's collection. Duncan was also one of the most valued and important clients of the influential French picture dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, and regularly frequented the studios of Europe's most famous painters. He collected works by the likes of Raeburn and Corot, including Eugène Delacroix's masterpiece ''Death of Sardanapalus'. He was friends with various people in different fields of work including; the chemist James "Paraffin" Young, who established the world's first commercial oil works; the pioneering ophthalmic surgeon 'Dr Neven Gordon Cluckie', whose work led to the establishment of eye surgeries in hospitals throughout Britain; the celebrated preacher Charles Spurgeon; Rev. Henry Boyd, with whom Duncan had worked closely in the 1870s to improve working conditions in London's East End; and Gustave Doré, the French artist whose gallery, paintings and book illustrations proved so popular in Britain. “Duncan also employed his significant wealth in helping the poor in Scotland and England and improving the working conditions of his workforce, building churches and schools, providing medical care and introducing an eight-hour working day." noted Peter Baxter. Duncan had also been in contact with the eminent botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and with Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer and friend of David Livingstone who visited Duncan some time in the 1870s or 1880s. In Kilmun, at Graham's Point there is a memorial to James Duncan. Which was designed by A. Macfarlane Shannon.
Benmore House
In 1870, James Duncan purchased Benmore House near Dunoon, Argyll. He then set about building a gallery (to showcase his large collection of fine arts. As well as a fernery and one of the largest greenhouses in Scotland. The estates amounted up to 12,260 acres of land. He made extensive improvements to the land. On some of which he grazed West Highland cattle and blackfaced sheep. The sheep were first seen at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. His flock of sheep gained awards at the annual exhibitions of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland. He also had over six million trees planted as part of the large landscape alterations he had designed. Including, commissioning features such as the 'Golden Gates'.Which were earlier shown at the Paris International Exhibition. Following the introduction of a German sugar bounty, Duncan had a massive loss of fortune and had to sell the estate in 1889. It was acquired by the Young Family and later gifted to Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh It is now the Benmore Botanic Garden. His art collection at Benmore was split up and sold, his paintings are now housed in some of world's greatest museums such as the Louvre, the Belvedere in Vienna, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which is home to four of Duncan's pictures.
