Robert Swinhoe

Robert Swinhoe FRS (1 September 1836 – 28 October 1877) was an English diplomat and naturalist who worked as a Consul in Qing-era Taiwan (then known to Westerners as Formosa).

While at this port, he not only mastered the Chinese language (both official Mandarin and the local Amoy dialect), but also initiated a detailed and authoritative understanding of the ornithology of eastern China.

In March 1856, Swinhoe made an "adventurous" visit to the camphor districts of northwestern Taiwan on board a lorcha, a hybrid vessel utilizing a European hull and Chinese rigging.

In June and July 1858, Swinhoe participated in the circumnavigation of Taiwan on board HMS Inflexible in search of British and American castaways.

Shoaling of the harbor at Taiwan-fu prompted him to re-establish the British consulate at the northern port of Tamsui, where the bulk of foreign trade occurred.

He corresponded with Henry Stevenson and one of his first publications was in 1858, the year in which Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace published their papers on natural selection.

[3] P. L. Sclater described him as "one of the most industrious and successful exploring naturalists that have ever lived" and after his death, A. R. Wallace wrote "due to Mr. Swinhoe's own exertions...there is probably no part of the world (if we except Europe, North America, and British India) of whose warm-blooded vertebrates we possess fuller or more accurate knowledge than we do of the coast districts of China and its islands.

[5] One of Robert's brothers, Colonel Charles Swinhoe was a founding member of the Bombay Natural History Society in India and an expert on Lepidoptera.