Anders Sparrman (27 February 1748,

Tensta Tensta is a district in Spånga-Tensta borough, Stockholm, Sweden. There are about 6,000 apartments in TenstaUppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...

– 9 August 1820) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

naturalist,

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus.

Biography

left, Miniature of Sparrman at the time of his travels with James Cook. By unknown artist. Sparrman was the son of a clergyman. At the age of nine he enrolled at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

, beginning medical studies at fourteen and becoming one of the outstanding pupils of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. In 1765 he went on a voyage to China as ship's doctor, returning two years later and describing the animals and plants he had encountered. On this voyage he met

Carl Gustaf Ekeberg Carl Gustaf Ekeberg (10 June 1716 – 4 April 1784) was a Swedish physician, chemist and explorer. He made several voyages to the East Indies and China as a sea captain. He brought back reports of the tea tree and wrote a number of books. Bio ...

. He sailed for the Cape of Good Hope in January 1772 to take up a post as a tutor. When James Cook arrived there later in the year at the start of his second voyage, Sparrman was taken on as assistant naturalist to

Johann Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name '' Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious ...

and

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold ...

. After the voyage he returned to

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

in July 1775 and practiced medicine, earning enough to finance a journey into the interior. He was guided by Daniel Ferdinand Immelman, the young frontiersman who had previously guided the Swedish botanist Carl Peter Thunberg. Daniel and Sparrman reached the

Great Fish River The Great Fish River (called ''great'' to distinguish it from the Namibian Fish River) ( af, Groot-Visrivier) is a river running through the South African province of the Eastern Cape. The coastal area between Port Elizabeth and the Fish R ...

and returned in April 1776. In 1776 Sparrman returned to Sweden, where he had been awarded an honorary doctorate in his absence. He was also elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1777. He was appointed keeper of the natural historical collections of the Academy of Sciences in 1780, Professor of natural history and pharmacology in 1781 and assessor of the Collegium Medicum in 1790. In 1790 he was elected to 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 ...

. In 1787 he took part in an expedition to West Africa, but this was not successful. Sparrman published several works, the best known of which is his account of his travels in South Africa and with Cook, published in English as ''A voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic polar circle, and round the world: But chiefly into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772 to 1776'' (1789). He also published a ''Catalogue of the Museum Carlsonianum'' (1786–89), in which he described many of the specimens he had collected in South Africa and the South Pacific, some of which were new to science. He published an ''Ornithology of Sweden'' in 1806. The asteroid 16646 Sparrman bears his name. The Swedish novelist

Per Wästberg Per Erik Wästberg (born 20 November 1933) is a Swedish writer and a member of the Swedish Academy since 1997. Wästberg was born in Stockholm, son of Erik Wästberg and his wife Greta née Hirsch, and holds a degree in literature from Uppsala ...

has written a

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fict ...

about Sparrman which was published in English in 2010, under the title as ''The Journey of Anders Sparrman''. Anders Erikson Sparrman is denoted by the author abbreviation Sparrm. when citing a

botanical name A botanical name is a formal scientific name conforming to the ''International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants'' (ICN) and, if it concerns a plant cultigen, the additional cultivar or Group epithets must conform to the ''Internat ...

References

External links

Taxonix
links to Museum Carlsonianum and other works online
Linnean Society of London
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sparrman, Anders 1748 births 1820 deaths Employees of the Swedish Museum of Natural History People from Uppsala Municipality Swedish ornithologists 18th-century Swedish zoologists 19th-century Swedish zoologists 18th-century Swedish physicians Swedish scientists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Age of Liberty people James Cook Explorers of Africa

Biography

See also

References

External links