James Duncan

James Duncan (4 April 1834 — 8 May 1905) was a Scottish sugar refiner and businessman, who then became a philanthropist and art collector. His house and grounds on the Cowal peninsula in Argyll became Benmore Botanic Garden, now managed by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Biography Duncan was born on 4 April 1834 in Springburn, Lanarkshire. He was the son of a successful Glasgow bookseller. In the early 1850s, while studying Chemistry at Glasgow, Duncan took a boat trip from Greenock to the lochs and coastlines of Argyll. While on Loch Long, he conceived a unique method of refining sugar, a method which he then patented. Between 1858 and 1861, Duncan was a partner of the Greenock sugar refinery Duncan, Bell & Scott. In 1854, the refinery was producing up to 50,000 tons of sugar. In the mid-1860s, Duncan developed the Clyde Wharf Refinery in Silvertown, London, which became the largest and most profitable sugar refinery in London. Duncan constantly refined the process and learned different applications to keep Clyde Wharf at the top of the industry. At the peak of the business, Clyde Wharf was producing up to two thousand tons of sugar per week. In August 1885, Duncan published an article in the Sugar Cane Journal, titled 'The bounty on exportation of refined sugar from the United States'.