Arthur de Carle Sowerby (8 July 1885 – 16 August 1954; ) was a British

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

explorer Exploration is the process of exploring, an activity which has some Expectation (epistemic), expectation of Discovery (observation), discovery. Organised exploration is largely a human activity, but exploratory activity is common to most organis ...

, writer, and publisher in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. His father was Arthur Sowerby (15 October 1857 – 27 June 1934; ).

Background

Arthur Sowerby was the son of a Christian missionary in China, the Reverend Arthur Sowerby, and Louisa Clayton. He was also the great-great-grandson of

James Sowerby James Sowerby (21 March 1757 – 25 October 1822) was an English natural history, naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist. Contributions to published works, such as ''A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland'' or ''English Botany'', include his ...

the botanist and founder of the

Geological Society The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe, with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

. From 1881, Arthur's parents were based at the

Baptist Missionary Society BMS World Mission, officially Baptist Missionary Society, is a Christian missionary society founded by Baptists from England in 1792. The headquarters is in Didcot, England. History The BMS was formed in 1792 as the ''Particular Baptist Societ ...

mission station in

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

. The Sowerby family was on furlough in England at the time of the 1900

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, was an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, and anti-Christian uprising in North China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by the Society of Righteous and Harmonious F ...

during which many of their friends and colleagues at their

mission station were massacred.

Education

Sowerby attended

Bristol University The University of Bristol is a public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Bristol, which had ...

studying for a BSc in Science but dropped out and returned to China where he was appointed lecturer and curator of the Anglo-Chinese College in

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

Expeditions

Sowerby joined the

Duke of Bedford Duke of Bedford (named after Bedford, England) is a title that has been created six times (for five distinct people) in the Peerage of England. The first creation came in 1414 for Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of Fran ...

’s 1906 Mission to collect zoological specimens in Shaanxi for the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

during which time he discovered a new species of

Jerboa Jerboas () are the members of the family Dipodidae. They are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia. They tend to live in hot deserts. When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on by little owls (''A ...

which was subsequently named after him: ''Dipus sagitta sowerby''. Sowerby was taken on as a naturalist for

Robert Sterling Clark Robert Sterling Clark (June 25, 1877 – December 29, 1956), an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune, was an American art collector, Horse breeding, horse breeder, and philanthropist. Biography Known by his middle name, Sterling Clark served ...

's Expedition of 1909 which sought specimens from the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

into Shaanxi and then to

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

province and made the first map of a little-known area of China. Clarke and Sowerby later published a book about the expedition entitled
Through Shên-kan: the account of the Clark expedition in north China, 1908-9
'. Sowerby married Mary Ann Mesny in 1909, but she was to die just 5 years later. He made four separate expeditions into

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

and parts of

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

during the next few years, the last being in 1915 and then wrote his book ''Fur and Feather in North China''. In the autumn of 1915 he went over to meet his brother and sister, both missionaries in Sian, and took the opportunity to seek more specimens in the

Qinling The Qinling () or Qin Mountains, formerly known as the Nanshan ("Southern Mountains"), are a major east–west mountain range in southern Shaanxi Province, China. The mountains mark the divide between the drainage basins of the Yangtze and Ye ...

range to the south of the city.

Shaanxi Relief

During the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...

, Arthur headed up the Shaanxi (Shensi) Relief Expedition. The expedition's task was to rescue and lead to safety as many foreign missionaries as possible. Setting out in December 1911 they trekked to

Xi'an Xi'an is the list of capitals in China, capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi. A sub-provincial city on the Guanzhong plain, the city is the third-most populous city in Western China after Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as the most populou ...

where the whole area was in a state of political upheaval following the overthrow of the dynasty. Bandit hordes were rampaging and had taken over much of the countryside. After a number of hair-raising experiences they returned to the safety of

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

in early 1912.

First World War

Sowerby returned to England during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

with the intention of joining up, but to his dismay was posted to the

Chinese Labour Corps The Chinese Labour Corps (CLC; ; ) was a labour corps recruited by the British government in the First World War to free troops for front line duty by performing support work and manual labour. The French government also recruited a significant ...

(CLC) due to his ability to speak the language. He was demobilised in 1919, remaining in England for a further year while writing ''The Naturalist in Manchuria''.

''The China Journal''

By the early part of the 1920s, Sowerby found that his chronic arthritis was preventing him from making any more major expeditions and therefore, when he met and married Clarice Moise in 1922, during her stay in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

on her world tour, they settled in Shanghai where they decided to found the '' China Journal'' which they edited until 1938, with Sowerby making regular contributions and editorials.''The China Journal'', China Society of Arts and Science

Second World War

After the Japanese capture of Shanghai's International Settlement on 8 December 1941, Sowerby, along with thousands of Allied nationals, lived under the Japanese occupation. Early on the morning of 5 November 1942 he was arrested, along with some 350 other prominent or suspicious individuals, by the Japanese

kempeitai The , , was the military police of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The organization also shared civilian secret police that specialized in clandestine and covert operation, counterinsurgency, counterintelligence, HUMINT, interrogated suspects ...

. However, due to ill health, he was released later that day, while the others began an almost three year internment in the Haiphong Road Camp. In June 1944 the Japanese revoked all previous exemptions from internment due to medical grounds and Sowerby was interned in the Lincoln Avenue Camp at the end of the month. While in camp, he taught botany and zoology to internees.

Other interests

Sowerby was a Fellow of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, a member and President (1935-1940) of the

North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society China is a learned society based in Shanghai and Beijing, China. It was established in Shanghai in 1857 by a small group of British and American expatriates as the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society, and within a ye ...

and also President (1928) of the China Society of Science and Arts (in Shanghai), as well as being Honorary Director of the Shanghai Museum.

Death

Sowerby and his third wife Alice retired to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

in the United States where Arthur died in 1954.

Legacy

Sowerby was commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Chinese lizard, ''Lygosaurus sowerbyi'', which was described and named by

Leonhard Stejneger Leonhard Hess Stejneger (30 October 1851 – 28 February 1943) was a Norwegian-born American ornithologist, herpetologist and zoologist. Stejneger specialized in vertebrate natural history studies. He gained his greatest reputation with repti ...

of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

in 1924. As of 2020 the species is considered to be a synonym of '' Ateuchosaurus chinensis''. www.reptile-database.org.

Publications

* Nature in Chinese Art, HE Gibson, 1940 – The John Day Company * Clay Funerary Figurines of the Pre-Han Period in China, 1954 – Hong Kong University Press * Notes on the Original Habitat of Father David's Deer, 1949 – Université l'Aurore * A Review of the Mammals of the Japanese Islands, Possessions and Mandated Territories, – Université l'Auroore * A New Species of Shrew from the Shanghai Area, 1945 – Université l'Aurore * Amphibians and Reptiles Recorded from Or Known to Occur in the Shanghai Area, M Heude, 1943 – Université l'Aurore * Birds Recorded from Or Known to Occur in the Shanghai Area, 1943 – Université l'Aurore * The mammals of the Japanese Islands, a. de Carle Sowerby, 1943 – Universite L'Aurore * Nature in Chinese art, 1940 – The John Day Company New York * A naturalist's note-book in China, 1925 – Shanghai: North-China Daily News * A Naturalist's Holiday by the Sea, 1923 - London: George Routledge & Sons * On a New Bat from Manchuria, Journal of Mammalogy, 1922 * Notes on Heude's Bears in the Sikawei Museum, and on the Bears of Palaearctic Eastern Asia, 1920 – Journal of Mammalogy

References

External links

Arthur de Carle Sowerby correspondence in the Sterling and Francine Clark Papers, Correspondence, Archives, Sterling and Francine Clark Art InstituteArthur de Carle Sowerby Papers
at the

Smithsonian Institution Archives Smithsonian Libraries and Archives is an institutional archives and library system comprising 21 branch libraries serving the various Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers. The Libraries and Archives serve Smithsonian Institution ...

. Includes a biography. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sowerby, Arthur De Carle 1885 births 1954 deaths 20th-century British explorers Explorers of Asia British non-fiction writers British editors British male writers 20th-century British naturalists 20th-century British non-fiction writers British male non-fiction writers