Sir Edward Bosc Sladen spent much of his career as a soldier/colonial administrator/diplomat in Burma. He was the natural choice to lead the mission to Yunnan in 1868 which was sent to explore the possibility of establishing a trade route between British India, Burma and China and on which John Anderson was the medical officer and naturalist. At the time of the mission to Yunnan Sladen was a Captain in the (British) Indian Army and In 1866 he had been appointed agent of the chief commissioner in Mandalay. In that year he narrowly escaped insurgents who had murdered three of the royal princes. During the subsequent disturbances Sladen gathered nearly all the Europeans and ‘other christians’ on board a steamboat and and evacuated them safely to Rangoon. After his return to Mandalay he persuaded the King of Burma, by then only in control of ‘upper’ Burma, not to execute three young princes. Only two survived, the third having been beheaded before news of the reprieve. After that he obtained the King’s assent to a new treaty covering commercial activity and extradition. It was against this background of hard and soft power that Sladen was chosen to lead the mission to China in 1868 described in David Leffman’s A Murder in Yunnan.
Sladen was born in Madras in 1827* to Dr Ramsey Sladen, Physician General of Madras in the East India Company, and his second wife, Emma Bosc. After Oswestry School he became a cadet of the East India Company in 1849 and on returning to India was appointed subaltern in the 1st Madras Fusiliers, a European regiment in the Company’s army. He served in the 2nd Burmese War. In 1853 he was appointed an assistant commissioner in Tenasserim. He was severely wounded during operations against insurgents in 1856-1857. In 1858 it was back to regimental duties. His regiment was heavily involved in the relief of Lucknow and further operations against the ‘mutineers’ in Oudh. Once back in Madras, Sladen reverted to the work of a district officer in Burma. The Staff Corps formed in the three Indian armies in 1861 enabled eligible officers to take up civil and political placements. When the 1st Madras Fusiliers became a royal regiment (i.e. a British Army regiment in India) Sladen became a member of the Indian Staff Corps but in 1878 still appeared in the Army List as in the Madras Staff Corps.
Captain Sladen of the Yunnan mission was promoted to major in 1869 and lieutenant colonel (without the hyphen in the modern style) in 1875. From 1876 until 1885 he was commissioner for the Arakan division. Then he was chief political officer to the force sent to depose Hing Thibaw in ‘upper’ Burma—the third Burma War. On 28 December Sladen arrived with the British troops sent to Mandalay. He entered the royal palace and took Thibaw’s surrender. The whole of Burma then became part of the Raj. Sladen was greatly praised by the viceroy for his courage and knowledge of the people of Burma. In 1886 Sladen was knighted and retired to England in 1887.
Sladen married Sophia Catherine Harrison in 1861; she died in 1865; they had a son and a daughter). Fifteen years later he married Kate Carew of Carpenders Park, Hertfordshire, in London; they had a son.
Sladen died in London on 4 January 1890, aged 63. He was living at 30 Lowndes Square, Chelsea. Newspaper reports provided the level of detail required by Victorian readers.
We also have to announce the death of Colonel Sir Edward Bosc Sladen, which took place of pneumonia, after a very short illness, in Lowndes square, on Saturday night. He and Lady Sladen were present at the Marchioness of Salisbury's ball on the 20th ult., but on returning to town next day he found himself attacked with the influenza epidemic which is now so prevalent, and which culminated in the disease to which he succumbed so quickly.
The press, following the money, also reported:
…The late Sir Edward was in receipt of a good service pension for distinguished and meritorious services; had the Indian Mutiny medal with clasp for Lucknow, and the Burmah medal with clasp for Pegu…
John Anderson who served as both medical officer and naturalist to the 1868 mission clearly thought highly of Sladen. H e named a number of species for Sladen as well as suggesting his name to those who he asked to work on the insects and fish collected during the trip. Those names have of course been subject to many later revisions of taxonomy and have either been entirely subsumed as synonyms into other species or retained as subspecies.
THE RAT
Anderson’s Mus sladeni, latter Rattus sladeni is a species I have written about previously. The original—but not necessarily those rats from other parts of Asia that came to be known as Sladen’s Rats—is now lumped in Rattus tanezumi, the Asian House Rat.
THE SQUIRREL
A Sladen eponym missing from the Eponym Dictionary of Mammals is Sciurus sladeni. This beautiful squirrel is now lumped into Pallas's squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus) which has major geographical differences in coloration. Some schemes retain the subspecies C. e. sladeni.
THE PHEASANT
Also missing from the books on avian eponyms is the pheasant Phasianus sladeni, now regsrded as a subspecies from northern Burma of the Common Pheasant: Phasianus colchicus sladeni.
THE FISH
Anderson appears to have handed over fish collected during the mission to Francis Talbot Day (1829-1889) a fellow medical man who became Inspector General for Fisheries in India. He named a freshwater fish for Sladen but got the name wrong: Salmostoma sladoni. Interpretation of hand-written labels after immersion in spirit is not easy.
THE TIGER MOTH
Frederic Moore (1830–1907) who worked at the East India Company’s museum in London sorted the insects. He named a tiger moth for Sladen: Syntomis sladeni. It survives as a full species, Amata sladeni.
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I thought that is all I had to write about Sladen and his eponymous animals. However, I now find that his son had a major role in a great public health problem of the 19th and 20th centuries. Edward Sydney St Barbe Sladen was medical scientist, soldier and zoologist, I can argue that I would not be sitting where I am today had he and his colleagues not tackled a zoonosis that still costs the UK millions of pounds every year to combat.
The colour plates are from: Anderson J. 1878. Comprising an Account of the Zoological Results of the Two Expeditions to Western Yunnan in 1868 and 1975 and a Monograph of the Two Cetacean Genera, Platanista and Orcella. Second Volume - Plates. London: Bernard Quaritch.
