Alleyne Ireland

Born in Manchester in 1871, Alleyne Ireland was a British traveller, lecturer, and author whose work focused on the administration of tropical colonies in the age of empire. Reliable biographical sources describe him as the son of journalist Alexander Ireland and biographer Annie Elizabeth Nicholson Ireland, and the brother of composer John Ireland. He studied at Manchester Grammar School and the University of Berlin before traveling widely through places including India, Burma, the Malay Peninsula, Java, Borneo, the Philippines, the West Indies, and British Guiana.

Those journeys shaped a series of books on colonial politics and administration, including Tropical Colonization, The Far Eastern Tropics, and The Province of Burma. He also wrote articles for The Times of London on British colonial rule, lectured at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, and the Lowell Institute, and worked on the staff of the New York World.

Many readers now know him best for his writing about Joseph Pulitzer. His Joseph Pulitzer: Reminiscences of a Secretary, later published as An Adventure with a Genius, draws on his own experience and gives an unusually close view of the famous newspaper publisher. Ireland died in 1951.