Born in Ireland and brought up in Glasgow, Scotland, James Arthur came to New York in 1871. Trained in mechanics and gear cutting, he pursued a career in the manufacture and repair of machinery, during the course of which he founded a number of successful businesses and received patents on a variety of mechanical devices. He was particularly interested in horology, the science of measuring time.

Early in the 20th century, James Arthur became associated with the AMNH, and began to expand his interest in time to evolutionary time, and his interest in mechanisms to that most precise and delicate mechanism of them all, the human brain. His fascination with the human brain led to his bequest to the AMNH permitting the establishment of the James Arthur Lectures on the Evolution of the Human Brain. The first lecture was given March 15, 1932.