James Alexander Macdonald, M.A., B.Sc.

 James Alexander Macdonald M.A. B.Sc., formerly H.M. Chief Inspector of Schools for the Highland division, graduated at the University of Edinburgh. He was first Rector of Leith Academy, having been appointed in 1897. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1897 and was the author of a mathematical paper in its Transactions (1897). He died on 7 June 1937 in his 71st year.

James Alexander Macdonald was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 7 June 1897, his proposers being George Chrystal, Peter Guthrie Tait, Alexander Crum Brown, Cargill Gilston Knott. This obituary, written anonymously, appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Volume 57 (1936-37), 436.