James Bayley Butler MBE MRIA (8 April 1884 – 21 February 1964) was an Irish biologist and academic, and was considered the foremost expert on the fungus which causes dry rot.
He incorporated stone which was salvaged from The Custom House and the Four Courts following their partial destruction in the 1920s, as well as fragments from original Butt Bridge, the Roman Forum, and the Baths of Caracalla.
[1] Upon the establishment of University College Dublin (UCD), Butler was the first lecturer in botany from 1909, assisting George Sigerson, the professor of biology.
During this time Butler served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, beginning as a lieutenant in 1915 and retiring a major after the war.
On this matter, he became an international expert, and assisted in the development of the company Biotox, which manufactured insecticides and fungicides for use in the construction industry.
He consulted on the dry rot that was discovered during the reconstruction of UCD's Newman House, and was called upon as an expert witness in Irish and English courts in relation to this expertise.
Butler also developed a process for waterproofing maps, the patent of which he sold to the United States Army during World War II.
Butler was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 1915, serving on the council three time, and also on the Flora and Fauna committee.