James Macaulay (22 May 1817 – 18 June 1902) was a Scottish medical man, journalist and author, best known as an anti-vivisectionist and periodical editor.

[1] With his fellow-student and lifelong friend Edward Forbes, Macaulay went to Paris in 1837-8, and witnessed François Magendie's experiments on animals; he became an opponent of vivisection.

Macaulay's contributors to The Leisure Hour, who were usually anonymous, included at the outset Richard Whately, and later Frank Buckland, Canon George Rawlinson, and Arminius Vambery.

[1] On leaving university, Macaulay travelled as a tutor in Italy and Spain, and spent some months in Madeira, contributing "Notes on the Physical Geography, Geology and Climate" of the island to the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal for October 1840.

He supplied the letterpress to Madeira, illustrated by Andrew Picken, and edited The Stranger (Funchal), both also published in 1840.

[1] Macaulay's publications in later life were mainly juvenile adventure for boys and girls, and anecdotes (of General Gordon, Martin Luther, David Livingstone, George Whitefield, and Oliver Cromwell).