James Hunter Harvey Pirie was born in Scotland in 1877. He was educated at Edinburgh University and graduated with a medical degree in 1902. He joined the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902-1904 (leader William Speirs Bruce) as medical officer, bacteriologist and geologist. He wintered at Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands, where a meteorological station (Omond House) was established by the expedition in 1903. He then joined the subsequent voyage to the Weddell Sea. Pirie published scientific reports on bacteriology, deep-sea deposits, the geology of Gough Island, and the geology and glaciology of the South Orkney Islands, contributing also to joint zoological papers, maps and reports.
On his return to Britain, Pirie took up private practice in Edinburgh, then joined the Colonial Medical Services in Kenya in 1913. After serving in the army in the First World War, he accepted the post of superintendent of the Routine Division of the South African Institute for Medical Research in Johannesburg in 1918, where he remained for the rest of his professional life. He died in South Africa on 27 September 1965.
Published work, The voyage of the Scotia, being a record of a voyage of exploration in the Antarctic Seas by Robert Cockburn Mossman, James Hunter Harvey Pirie, and Robert Neal Rudmose Brown, C. Hurst London (1906) SPRI Library Shelf (7)91(08)[1902-1904 Bruce]
From the guide to the James Hunter Harvey Pirie collection, 1913, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
