He studied at the Edinburgh Academy from 1824 to 1826 before going to Addiscombe in 1826 and Haileybury from 1828 to 1830. Appointed to the Bombay Service in the East India Company, he studied at Hailebury College before he went to India in May 1831 and served initially in the Revenue Department.
He later became a deputy collector of customs and then a deputy opium agent at Bombay. He transferred to become collector and magistrate of Abolapore Zilla. In 1854 he resigned and went on furlough for three years.
During this period he explored the South Mahratta Country where he was for sometime a political agent and travelled around Mahabaleshwar and present day Uttara Kanara region.
He retired with an annuity in 1865. Inverarity"s 1830 notes of the teachings of Thomas Malthus and his interpretations of Adam Smith"s Wealth of Nations have been an important source for the study of Malthus" teachings and ideas.
Inverarity married Martha Maria, the eldest daughter of Sir John Pollard Willoughby, at Bombay in 1844. He contributed numerous short notes to the Journal of the BNHS on the tiger, water buffalo, as well as small game as well as entries on tiger hunting in the Encyclopedia of Sport (1898).
He was attacked by a lioness that he was hunting near Berbera and the incident gathered considerable news coverage.
In James Joyce"s book A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Manitoba, the main character Stephen Daedalus own a copy of Horace"s verses owned by the brothers John and William Duncan Inverarity with notes in Latin pencilled on the margin.
In 1859 he succeeded Sir Bartle Frere as Commissioners of Sind, holding the post till 1862, when he was appointed a Member of the Council in Bombay and sworn in on 24 March 1862. A son, John Duncan Inverarity died 4 December 1923 at Bombay) also went into the Bombay Service where he was a barrister in the Bombay High Court apart from being a keen outdoorsman and big game hunter and one of the early members of the Bombay Natural History Society.
