The Taiwan Journey of a British Diplomat

The name of Robert Swinhoe is renowned in the world of biology, and he named or lent his moniker to many of Taiwan’s bird and mammal species. He was also the first British diplomat stationed in Taiwan.

Swinhoe became fascinated with observing natural phenomena at a young age and he especially loved birds. He entered the consular service at the age of 18, and first visited Taiwan in 1856, when he collected animal specimens in the Hsinchu area.

Lin Jun-tsong, an associate research fellow at the National Taiwan Museum, tells us that in 1858 Swinhoe and the British plant collector Charles Wilford (d. 1893) circumnavigated Taiwan on the British naval vessel Inflexible. In 1860 Swinhoe was named British vice-consul in Taiwan, making him the UK’s first diplomat on the island, and he left Taiwan in 1866 to become acting British consul in Xiamen (Amoy). In total he remained in Taiwan for only four brief years, but he amassed many speciments of plants and animals, whether by collecting them himself, employing hunters, or purchasing them, and he recorded the natural scenery and local customs as well as visiting indigenous communities. He also published important writings on Taiwan’s bird and mammal species.

Lin notes that in the 19th century many Western adventurers came to Taiwan, where they collected plant and animal specimens to send back home. Swinhoe not only did this, but also used the inter­nationally recognized “binomial nomenclature” system for classifying species, created by Swedish botanist Carl von Linné (1707–1778), to systematically identify local specimens and publish scientific descriptions of them, leaving a huge mark on the field of biology in Taiwan. The Linnaean binomial system uses two-part names comprising the name of a genus followed by the name of a species within that genus.

Swinhoe himself, and others studying the specimens he collected, scientifically named 227 species of birds found in Taiwan, nearly 40 species of mammals, 246 species of plants, more than 200 species of terrestrial snails and freshwater shellfish, and more than 400 species of insects. There were also reptiles, fish, invertebrates, and so on. He was a giant of zoology in Taiwan and a pioneer in the study of natural history who showed the island’s biodiversity to the world.

Lin Jun-tsong summarizes Swinhoe’s time in Taiwan: After circum­navigating the island in 1858, he took up his diplomatic post in 1861, and then searched in modern Tainan, Tamsui, and Kao­hsiung for a suitable place to set up a consulate. In 1863 he recorded two black-faced spoonbills at the mouth of the Tamsui River and in 1864 he captured a pair of Formosan macaques on “Apes’ Hill” (Shoushan) in Kaohsiung. In 1866 he traveled to the Xueshan Mountains to survey the local flora and fauna and collected a specimen of the ­Formosan sambar deer. He died in England in 1877. During his lifetime he published at least 52 articles about Taiwan.

During Swinhoe’s tenure in Taiwan, he searched Takow (today’s Kaohsiung) for a suitable place for a consulate. The consular office and residence were eventually built at Shaochuantou by one of his successors. The Kaohsiung City Government has recently renovated the buildings and created a culture park that is open to the public.

Swinhoe collected or purchased specimens of many Taiwanese fauna, and wrote scholarly articles naming their species for science and introducing Taiwan’s biodiversity to the world. He was a pioneer of natural history on this island.

A proud collector of birds

Lin Ruey-shing, chief of the Division of Habitats and Ecosystems at the Council of Agriculture’s Endemic Species Research Institute, says that Swinhoe’s article “The Ornithology of Formosa, or Taiwan” published in Ibis in 1863, which describes 186 species of birds, was his most important work on Taiwan’s avian life. There are 227 bird species found in Taiwan that were named by Swinhoe or by other researchers who worked with his specimens, including the now protected Swinhoe’s pheasant (Lophura swinhoii), which was named in Swinhoe’s honor by the British scholar John Gould. Even today, these make up one-third of the 686 bird species so far recorded in Taiwan.

In “The Ornithology of Formosa” Swinhoe wrote that birds were his favorite animals, and that in his short time in Taiwan he had tried to collect as many bird specimens and as much information as possible. Thus he was able to compile what he described as “a very fine list of the avifauna of this hitherto unknown island.” He was quite proud of his achievements.

“If you want to talk about the history of ornithology in Taiwan, you have to start with Swinhoe,” says Lin Ruey-shing. The birds were there long before his arrival, but Swinhoe was the first person to use binomial nomenclature to make the world aware of Taiwan’s rich variety of avian life. “Everyone acknowledges that he was an important pioneer of ornithological research in Taiwan.”

Swinhoe also published a monograph on the mammals of Formosa. This first-ever scientific report on Taiwan’s mammals included more than 20 animals, such as the macaque, black bear, sika deer, clouded leopard, and civet. It was Swinhoe who placed Taiwan’s mammals on the agenda of international biology. The British Museum still has a specimen, collected by Swinhoe, of the clouded leopard, which is now extinct in Taiwan.

Lin Jun-tsong, associate research fellow at the National Taiwan Museum, says that Swinhoe left a huge mark on the study of biology and natural history in Taiwan.

The Formosan macaque (Macaca cyclopis) and Swinhoe's pheasant (Lophura swinhoii) are both endemic to Taiwan. The former was named for science by Robert Swinhoe, while the latter was named in his honor. (MOFA file photos)

Promoter of Taiwanese tea exports

Swinhoe’s accomplishments as a naturalist are widely recognized, but less well known is his promotion of the export of Taiwanese tea to the US. Lin Jun-tsong says that after treaty ports were opened in Taiwan from 1860, Taiwanese tea, sugar, and camphor were exported in large quantities. Swinhoe sent samples of Taiwanese tea to British tea inspectors to promote tea exports.

In 1862 Swinhoe wrote his “Report of Trade in ­Formosa Previous to 1862,” which is said to have attracted the Scottish merchant John Dodd to visit Taiwan and import tea manufacturing equipment and manpower. In 1869 Dodd exported “Choicest Formosa Oolong Tea” to New York, where it was very well received, marking Taiwanese tea’s entree into the history of the world’s tea trade.

Christopher Swinhoe-Standen, a great-great grandson of one of Robert Swinhoe’s cousins, came to Taiwan to retrace Swinhoe’s career on the island, and left a number of photos at the Kaohsiung consulate culture park.

 

Swinhoe wrote a report about goods traded in Taiwan, attracting a Scottish merchant to the island to process local tea for export. Thus one can say that Swinhoe was a moving force behind exports of Taiwanese tea. (courtesy of the National Taiwan Museum)

The British consulate at Takow

In early 1864, Swinhoe moved the British consulate from Tamsui to Tainan, and the vice-consulate to Kao­hsiung (then known as Takow), and the latter was upgraded to a consulate the next year. The late British scholar David Charles Oakley, whose widow is Taiwanese and who wrote a book on the British consulate at Takow, discovered that it was a later British diplomat who built the actual consular buildings at Shaochuantou.

The former consular residence stands on top of a hill on the north side of the northern entrance to Kao­hsiung Harbor. The former consular office is at the foot of the hill, facing the harbor, conveniently located for consular and commercial affairs. The two are connected by a path. In 2013 the Kaohsiung City Bureau of Cultural Affairs (BCA) completed restoration of the buildings and opened them to the public as a culture park.

The steep 200-meter-long path connecting the two buildings, made of granite, coral stone, and brick, is unassuming. The BCA erected a wax statue of Swinhoe next to the path, with a Swinhoe’s tree lizard in its right hand and Formosan macaques on the rocks beside it, so that visitors can come to know this diplomat who made such a huge contribution to natural history in Taiwan.

In 1903, the US diplomat James Wheeler Davidson (1872–1933) assessed Swinhoe’s ties to Taiwan in the following terms: “No other foreigner during either the past or present has succeeded in associating his name so firmly with Formosa as the late Robert Swinhoe.”

The BCA has created a “Swinhoe’s Adventure” tour with a guide leading people through the British consulate culture park and on a cruise to follow Swinhoe’s footsteps in the harbor area. This tour not only allows people to look back on the history of Kaohsiung, but also reminds us of Swinhoe’s contributions to bringing Taiwan’s natural history to the world’s attention, and the effort and sense of mission that he dedicated to the flora and fauna of a foreign land.

The Kaohsiung City Government has created a “Swinhoe’s Adventure” tour which takes tourists on a boat trip to reexperience Swinhoe’s own time in the harbor city.

The many old photographs relating to Swinhoe’s time in Kaohsiung that are on display in the former British consulate remind us of his dedication and contributions to natural history in Taiwan