Thomas Edward Bowdich
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
traveller and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
He was born at Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
and educated at Bristol Grammar School
Bristol Grammar School
Bristol Grammar School is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England. The school was founded in 1532 by two brothers, Robert and Nicholas Thorne....
. In 1813 he married Sarah Wallis
Sarah Bowdich Lee
Sarah Bowdich Lee was an English author, illustrator, traveller, zoologist, botanist, and pteridologist....
, who shared his subsequent career. In 1814, through his uncle, J. Hope-Smith, governor of the British Gold Coast
Gold Coast (British colony)
The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...
settlements, he obtained a writership in the service of the African Company of Merchants
African Company of Merchants
The African Company of Merchants was a Chartered Company in the Gold Coast area of modern Ghana, in the coastal area where the Fante people lived...
and was sent to Cape Coast
Cape Coast
Cape Coast, or Cabo Corso, is the capital of the Central Region of Ghana and is also the capital city of the Fante people, or Mfantsefo. It is situated 165 km west of Accra on the Gulf of Guinea. It has a population of 82,291 . From the 16th century the city has changed hands between the...
. In 1817 he was sent, with two companions, William Hutchison and Henry Tedlie, to Kumasi
Kumasi
Kumasi is a city in southern central Ghana's Ashanti region. It is located near Lake Bosomtwe, in the Rain Forest Region about northwest of Accra. Kumasi is approximately north of the Equator and north of the Gulf of Guinea...
on a mission to the king of Ashanti, and chiefly through his skillful diplomacy the mission succeeded in its object of securing British control over the coast natives. In 1818 Bowdich returned to England, and in 1819 published an account of his mission and of the study he had made of the court of Kumasi, entitled Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee, &c. (London, 1819). He presented his African collections to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. Bowdich publicly attacked the management of the African committee, and his strictures were instrumental in leading the British government to assume direct control over the Gold Coast.
From 1820 to 1822 Bowdich lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, studying mathematics and the natural sciences, and was on intimate terms with Georges Cuvier
Georges Cuvier
Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
, Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
and other savants. During his stay in France he edited several works on Africa, and also wrote scientific works. In 1822, accompanied by his wife, he went to Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, where, from a study of historic MSS., he published An Account of the Discoveries of the Portuguese in . . . Angola and Mozambique (London, 1824). In 1823 Bowdich and his wife, after some months spent in Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
and Cape Verde Islands, arrived at Bathurst (now Banjul
Banjul
-Transport:Ferries sail from Banjul to Barra. The city is served by the Banjul International Airport. Banjul is on the Trans–West African Coastal Highway connecting it to Dakar and Bissau, and will eventually provide a paved highway link to 11 other nations of ECOWAS.Banjul International Airport...
) at the mouth of the Gambia, intending to go to Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
and thence explore the interior. However, Bowdich died from malaria while in Bathurst on 10 January 1824, leaving his widow Sarah with three children.
His widow, Sarah (Wallis) Bowdich Lee
Sarah Bowdich Lee
Sarah Bowdich Lee was an English author, illustrator, traveller, zoologist, botanist, and pteridologist....
, published an account of his last journey, entitled Excursions in Madeira and Porto Santo . . . to which is added A Narrative of the Continuance of the Voyage to its Completion, &c (London, 1825). Bowdich's daughter, Mrs Tedlie Hutchison Hale, republished in 1873, with an introductory preface, her father's Mission from Cape Coast Castle to Ashantee.