The making of a naturalist in Manchuria: Arthur de Carle Sowerby, 1885–1922

Abstract

This article examines the professional identity-building of Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885–1954), a China-born explorer of Anglo descent who was a versatile hunter-sportsman aspiring to become a naturalist. Existing work on Sowerby acknowledges his role as the founder of the China Journal of Science and Arts and as president of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai; yet his pre-Shanghai life and career prior to 1922 has received scant scholarly attention. Between 1907 and 1922, Sowerby joined several expeditions exploring the terrain and collecting animal specimens in the Manchurian and Sino-Mongolian borderland before taking up residence in Shanghai in 1923 until his departure from China in 1946. Sowerby's zoological expedition in Manchuria is discussed as a backdrop against which his subsequent Shanghai career is portrayed. Sowerby's roles as an explorer and fieldworker have not been subject to independent examination. I argue that the making of Sowerby's naturalist identity reflects a career route for amateur practitioners to build a scientific identity via expeditionary fieldwork, writing natural history for popular audiences and curating biological specimens in early twentieth-century China.