Thomas Horsfield (May 12, 1773 – July 24, 1859) was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and naturalist who worked extensively in Indonesia, describing numerous species of plants and animals from the region. He was later a curator of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...

Museum in London.

Early life

Horsfield was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and studied medicine at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

. He was the grandson of Timothy Horsfield, Sr. (1708-1773), who was born in Liverpool and emigrated to New York in 1725. In New York, his brother Isaac and he ran a butcher shop. The Horsfield family converted from the Church of England to Moravianism, a Protestant denomination with a strong emphasis on education. In 1748, Horsfield, Sr. applied for permission to reside in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He, however, moved only his family to Bethlehem and joined them the next year. When Northampton County was created in 1752, he was made a justice of peace by Governor Hamilton. In 1763 he was commissioned a colonel in the forces defending the frontiers against Indian raids. One of the sons, Joseph Horsfield was a delegate in the Pennsylvania convention to ratify the Federal Constitution. Grandfather Horsfield was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and finds mention in the latter's autobiography. Horsfield's father was Timothy Horsfield, Jr. (died April 11, 1789) and he married Juliana Sarah Parsons of Philadelphia in 1738. Thomas Horsfield was born in Bethlehem on May 12, 1773. He went to school at the Moravian schools in Bethlehem and Nazareth. He took an interest in biology and took a pharmacy course under a Dr Otto (probably John Frederick Otto MD, of Nazareth). In 1798, he graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, his thesis being on the effects of poison ivy.

Travels in Asia

In 1799, he accepted a post as surgeon on the vessel ''China'', a merchant vessel that was to sail to

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...

. He passed through Batavia and was struck by the beauty of the region. In 1801, he applied to be a surgeon with the Dutch Colonial Army in Batavia. Taking up appointment there, he took a keen interest in the flora, fauna, and geology of the region. The

took control of the island from the Dutch in 1811, and Horsfield began to collect

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae excl ...

s and

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...

s on behalf of the governor and friend Sir

Thomas Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...

. In 1816, Java was restored to the Dutch and Horsfield moved west to Sumatra. In 1819, he was forced to leave the island due to ill health, and returned to London on board the ''Lady Raffles''.

England

On returning to London, Horsfield continued to be in contact with Sir Stamford Raffles and became a keeper of the museum of the East India Company on Leadenhall Street,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, working under Charles Wilkins. He stayed in this position, later as a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

, until his death on July 24, 1859. Horsfield took an interest in geology, botany, zoology, and entomology. He was influenced by

William Sharp Macleay William Sharp Macleay or McLeay (21 July 1792 – 26 January 1865) was a British civil servant and entomologist. He was a prominent promoter of the Quinarian system of classification. After graduating, he worked for the British embassy in Par ...

and his quinarian system of classification. He was a fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

of London (1828) and a fellow of the Linnean Society (1820), later becoming a vice president. In 1828, he was elected a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

. Horsfield was appointed assistant secretary of the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained the London Zoo, and since 1931 Whipsnade Park. History On 29 ...

at its formation in 1826. In 1833, he was a founder of what became the Royal Entomological Society of London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1828. In 1838, he became correspondent of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands; when that became the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1851, he joined as foreign member. Horsfield died at his home in Camden Town and was buried at the Moravian cemetery in Chelsea.

Published works

Horsfield wrote ''Zoological Researches in Java and the Neighbouring Islands'' (1824). He also classified a number of birds with

Nicholas Aylward Vigors Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785 – 26 October 1840) was an Irish zoologist and politician. He popularized the classification of birds on the basis of the quinarian system. Early life Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow on 1785 a ...

, most notably in their ''A Description of the Australian Birds in the Collection of the Linnean Society; With an Attempt at Arranging them According to Their Natural Affinities'' (Trans. Linn. Soc. Lond. (1827)). Together with the botanists Robert Brown and John Joseph Bennett he published the ''Plantae Javanicae rariores'' (1838–52). Horsfield is commemorated in the names of a number of animals and plants, including: * Javanese flying squirrel, ''

Iomys horsfieldii The Javanese flying squirrel (''Iomys horsfieldii'') is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is found in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and ...

'' * Horsfield's fruit bat, '' Cynopterus horsfieldi'' * Horsfield's shrew, '' Crocidura horsfieldi'' * Horsfield's bat, ''

Myotis horsfieldii Horsfield's bat (''Myotis horsfieldii'') is a species of vesper bat. It is found in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. References

Mouse-eared bats Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa ...

'', a species of small bat in the family Vespertilionidae * Horsfield's flying gecko, ''Ptychozoon horsfieldi'', a species of Asian gliding lizardBeolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Horsfield", p. 125). * Russian tortoise, ''Testudo horsfieldii'' * Horsfield's spiny lizard, '' Salea horsfieldii'', a species of agamid lizard found in southern India in the Nilgiri and Palni Hills * Malabar whistling thrush, '' Myophonus horsfieldii'', a bird found in peninsular India * Indian scimitar-babbler, '' Pomatorhinus horsfieldii'', an Old World babbler found in peninsular India * White's thrush (Horsfield's thrush), '' Zoothera horsfieldi'', a resident bird in Indonesia. * Oriental cuckoo, '' Cuculus horsfieldi'' * Horsfield's bronze cuckoo, '' Chrysococcyx basalis'' * Common darkie, ''

Paragerydus horsfieldii ''Allotinus horsfieldi'', the common darkie, is a small butterfly found in India that belongs to the lycaenids or blues family. Range It is found in Assam in India to Myanmar. Also Chittagong Hill Tracts. As per Savela the butterfly occurs fr ...

'', a small butterfly found in India * '' Arhopala horsfieldi'', a butterfly of the family

Lycaenidae Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterf ...

found in Asia * South Indian blue oakleaf, '' Kallima horsfieldii'', a nymphalid butterfly found in India * ''

Horsfieldia ''Horsfieldia'' is a genus of evergreen trees. The genus consists of about 100 species and is distributed across South Asia, from India to the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. Some species are used for timber. Species in the genus sometimes con ...

'', a plant genus in the family

Myristicaceae The Myristicaceae are a family of flowering plants native to Africa, Asia, Pacific islands, and the Americas and has been recognized by most taxonomists. It is sometimes called the "nutmeg family", after its most famous member, '' Myristica fra ...

native to Southeast Asia * Horsfield's Tarsier, '' Cephalopachus bancanus''

References

External links