Arthur de Carle Sowerby

Representation of Buddhist hell in the Longwangmiao at Yan'an, Shaanxi, photo by Arthur Sowerby, n.d.

Arthur de Carle Sowerby (8 July 1885 – 16 August 1954; ) was a British naturalist, explorer, writer, and publisher in China. 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 the botanist and founder of the Geological Society. From 1881, Arthur's parents were based at the Baptist Missionary Society mission station in Shanxi. The Sowerby family was on furlough in England at the time of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion during which many of their friends and colleagues at their Shanxi mission station were massacred.

Education Sowerby attended Bristol University 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.

He made four separate expeditions into Manchuria and parts of Mongolia 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 range to the south of the city.

First World War Sowerby returned to England during the First World War with the intention of joining up, but to his dismay was posted to the Chinese Labour Corps (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.

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. 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, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, a member and President (1935-1940) of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society and also President (1928) of the China Society of Science and Arts (in Shanghai), as well as being Honorary Director of the Shanghai Museum. As of 2020 the species is considered to be a synonym of Ateuchosaurus chinensis.

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