The Duke of Bedford’s Zoological Exploration of Eastern Asia in the 1900s—But some sources get the wrong duke

When I was looking up stuff on the rodents of China before and after our trip to Sichuan in November 2017, I came across references to Oldfield Thomas (of his eponymous pika) and to the Zoological Society of London’s exploration of eastern Asia paid for by the Duke of Bedford. Reading further I realised there were errors—amplified of course by repetition on the internet—in some of the secondary accounts.

11th Duke of Bedford

The Duke of Bedford from 1893 until his son inherited the title on his death in 1940 was the 11th Duke, Herbrand Arthur Russell (1858-1940). He was President of the Zoological Society of London from 1899 until 1935 and is well known for gathering the last live specimens of Père David’s Deer after the Boxer Rebellion and building up a herd at Woburn, his country seat in Bedfordshire.  Less welcome was his rôle in introducing the Grey Squirrel from North America.

Unfortunately, some accounts by authors, who should have known better, of the exploration paid for by the 11th Duke, attribute the naming of the exploration to his son (whom he loathed and was loathed equally in return), the 12th Duke, Hastings William Sackville Russell (1888-1953). Hasting Russell who inherited the title in 1940 (before then he used the junior title of Marquess of Tavistock) was a cranky pacifist, fascist and famous aviculturist.

The personalities and lifestyles of these two Dukes of Bedford is described by the 13th Duke, John Ian Robert Russell (1917-2002) in his book, A Silver-plated Spoon. He had a difficult, to put it mildly, relationship with his father and grandfather. Of his grandfather he wrote:

In the midst of all this magnificence my grandfather lived a completely lonely and austere life. He had no contemporaries or friends of his own and most of the people who came to stay were cousins or other relatives. He had very little time for human beings and rarely spoke.

A somewhat different picture emerges from his Royal Society biographical memoir written by Peter Chalmers Mitchell. However, this one does come with a caveat. The 11th Duke, as President, and Mitchell, as Secretary, were in cahoots for over 30 years in running the Zoological Society and Mitchell was a brilliant publicist.

By disposition the Duke was a rather old-fashioned country gentleman, not fond of company, but taking his pleasure in fishing, shooting, natural history and estate management. Neither hunting nor racing had any attraction for him… In politics the Duke, originally a Liberal, passed over to the Conservative side through Liberal-Unionism, but maintained the traditions of his family by allowing the fullest scope of opinion to others. It was the good fortune of the present writer to be closely associated with him for nearly forty years, directly in connexion with the Zoological Society and zoological affairs, but incidentally in many other respects. He has never known any one more modest about his wide attainments and unusual ability, with a greater sense of duty to his country and to his King, or more conscientiously resolved to accept the responsi­bilities of his wealth and position. He was courteous, almost deferential to every one, and the kindest of friends. 

How the exploration of eastern Asia paid for by the Duke came about I do not know but it would appear that Oldfield Thomas was a driving force (he served on the Council of the Zoological Society). It was clearly not simply a single expedition since various people took part over different periods. I have also not found out why or how the leader and various members were chosen. It ran from 1904 until 1911 and concentrated on mammals. A further complication is that this enterprise overlapped with the Clark expedition of 1908-1909 in northern China. That was led and funded by Robert Sterling Clark, with specimens going to the U.S.A. The complication is that Arthur de Carle Sowerby (1885-1954) worked on both.

Oldfield Thomas

The leader of the Bedford exploration was the American, Malcolm Playfair Anderson (1879-1919). The intention seems to have been collecting for Oldfield Thomas at the Natural History Museum in London, then known, of course, by that awful title, British Museum (Natural History). Sowerby was involved in 1908. Francis (Frank) Kingdon-Ward (1885-1958), a botanical collector described as one of Anderson’s assistants, was involved in a trip through western China in 1909-1910 with Dr J.A.C. Smith, also described by Thomas as Anderson’s assistant.

Thomas described the mammalian finds and new species in a number of papers. In a paper to the Zoological Society in 1911 he explained some of the history of the whole affair:

After the departure of his assistants, Dr. J.A.C. Smith and Mr. Kingdon Ward, down the Yang-tze, with the remarkable collection of mammals which formed the subject of paper No. XIII of the present series, Mr. Malcolm Anderson worked on by himself from September 1910 to the end of March 1911, when he brought back to Shanghai the series on which the present paper is based. 

During this period he explored a number of localities in Western Sze-chuan and N. Yunnan, and has been rewarded by finding a considerable and quite unexpected number of species additional to those previously sent…  

To our great loss and regret Mr. Anderson now proposes to give up the arduous life of the field collector, and this is therefore the last paper to be written on his collections for the Duke of Bedford’s Exploration of Eastern Asia. On this account it is suitable to five a few words of appreciation for the manner in which he has risen to the opportunity afforded by our President’s [i.e. the 11th Duke of Bedford] continued generosity. 

From the commencement of the work in 1904 to the sending home of this last valuable collection in 1911 Mr. Anderson has worked for the Exploration with superb enthusiasm and success, and in the extent to which his collections have revolutionized our knowledge of an extended part of the earth’s surface he has made a record which, so far as I know, has never been equalled… 

In turn Mr. Anderson has visited and collected in Japan and its islands, both the small southern ones and the large northern Hokkaido and Saghalien, Korea, N. China and Mongolia, Shen-si, Shan-si, Kansu, Sze-chwan and N. Yunnan, his collecting-localities being dotted through all the previously most unexplored parts of this little-known area. 

Over 2700 mammals have been collected, besides many birds and, as is natural, a large number of novelties have been found among them.

I will write about what I have found on Anderson, Smith, Kingson-Ward and Sowerby in my next post.

I am, as I shall suggest in the other articles in this series, doubtful of any involvement of the Zoological Society of London. I suspect the American, Anderson, conflated the Natural History Museum in London with the Zoological Society of London since the Duke of Bedford who paid for the whole thing was President of the latter at the time. Anderson may have seen the Duke at the Society's offices in connexion with the eponymous Exploration. It is clear that Anderson was working de facto for Oldfield Thomas at the Museum.

Chalmers Mitchell P. 1941. Herbrand Arthur Russell. Duke of Bedford. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 3, 499-502

John, Duke of Bedford. 1959. A Silver-plated Spoon. London: Cassell (1960, The Reprint Society)

Thomas O. 1912. The Duke of Bedford’s Zoological Exploration of Eastern Asia.—XV. On mammals from the provinces of Sze-chwan and Yunnan, Western China. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London (1912), 127-141

UPDATED 30 July 2019