James Fergusson FRS (22 January 1808 – 9 January 1886) was a Scottish architectural historian, mainly remembered for his interest in Indian historical architecture and antiquities. He was an important figure in the 19th-century rediscovery of ancient India. He was originally a businessman, and though not formally trained as an architect, designed some buildings and decorative schemes.
Education and India
Fergusson was born in Ayr, the son of William Fergusson (1773–1846) an army surgeon turned medical writer, and inspector of hospitals. After being educated first at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and then at a private school in Hounslow, he went to India to work as a manager at his family's mercantile house of Fairlie, Fergusson & Co. of Calcutta. Here he became interested in the remains of the ancient architecture of India, little known or understood at that time. The successful conduct of an indigo factory, as he states in his own account, enabled him to retire from business after about ten years and settle in London.
His observations on Indian architecture were first published in his book on The Rock-cut Temples of India, published in 1845. The task of analysing the historic and aesthetic relations of this type of ancient buildings led him further to undertake a historical and critical comparative survey of the whole subject of architecture in The Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, being a Concise and Popular Account of the different Styles of Architecture prevailing in all Ages and Countries, a work which first appeared in 1855 in two volumes. It was followed in 1862 by one entitled A History of the Modern Styles of Architecture, being a sequel to the Handbook of Architecture.
