Henry James Stovin Pryer

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Henry James Stovin Pryer
Born10 June 1850
Middlesex
Died17 February 1888 (1888-02-18) (aged 37)
Yokohama, Japan
Scientific career
FieldsEntomology
Ornithology

Henry James Stovin Pryer (10 June 1850[1] - 17 February 1888[2]) also known as Harry Pryer,[2] was a British merchant and naturalist who worked in Japan. Pryer's special interest areas were entomology and ornithology. He was the younger brother of Isabel Thorne and William Burgess Pryer.

Biography[edit]

Pryer's parents were Thomas Pryer, a Solicitor, and his wife Isabel (née Charlton), who were married on 2 June 1833.[1][3] The couple had six children: Isabel Jane, Annette, Thomas Neremiah, William Burgess, Jessy Courtney and Henry James Stovin who was born on 10 June 1850 and baptised at Saint Paul's, Bunhill Row, Finsbury on 3 March 1851.[1] At the time of Pryer's baptism his family lived at Artillery Place, Finsbury Square.[1]

Pryer's father Thomas had died by 18 March 1851, as John Edmund Cox gave a sermon in Thomas' memory at St Helen's, Bishopsgate on that date.[4] Isabel Pryer appears on the 1851 England Census, taken on the night of 30 March 1851, as a widow looking after her six children (including 9 month old Henry) with a live-in nurse and cook.[5]

In 1856 Pryer's older sister Isabel Jane married Joseph Thorne,[6] a Merchant who with his brother Augustus ran Thorne and Company, a textile trading business with links to Hong Kong and China.[7] Isabel and Joseph Thorne would live in Shanghai, China for several years due to Joseph's work.[8] Pryer's older brother William became a clerk working for Thorne and Company, and was also based in Shanghai.[9] Following his siblings by travelling to Asia, Henry Pryer is described as first going to Japan in 1870[2] and is also recorded as a passenger travelling to Shanghai by steamship in February 1871.[10]

A carte-de-visite photograph of 'The Bluff, looking Eastwards, Yokohama' by W.P. Floyd of Hong Kong

By 1875 Pryer was living in Yokohama, Japan.[9] He lived in a residence numbered 127 in "The Bluff",[11] now Yamate District, once known as the gaikokujin kyoryūchi (foreign settlement).[12] Pryer initially worked as a Clerk for Adamson, Bell and Company (later Dodwell & Co.), a company which traded tea and silk.[9] In 1879 Pryer began working for a business named Bisset and Company.[13]

Pryer was described as having a retiring but amiable disposition, and being a good friend to people who knew him well.[13]

As a naturalist[edit]

Pryer had become a member of the Entomological Society of London while still a teenager living in England, joining in 1867.[14] Siblings Isabel and William had also shown interest in science from a young age, so Pryer had a supportive family.[13]

While in Yokohama Pryer began to study and write about the local wildlife. Pryer was a supporter of Darwin's Theory of Evolution and tried to apply evolutionary theory to his own observations of nature.[13] Pryer said in the introduction to his butterfly monograph Rhopalocera Nihonica that he had devoted 16 years (i.e. all the time he had been resident in Japan) to the study of butterflies from Japan's Islands.[15] In the same volume Pryer gives his detailed methodology for collecting and preserving insect specimens - Pryer favoured the "Continental system" with insects being set flat and high on a long pin to avoid damage and accommodate labels underneath as opposed to the English system (using short pins) which he felt was 'a decided mistake.'[16] Pryer also criticised entomologists who did not properly catalogue or label their collections: 'Most specimens have no intrinsic value; it is the facts concerning them which are of instruction and value.'[17]

A plate from Pryer's book Rhopalocera nihonica

Pryer's butterfly collection included examples from all over Japan: he mentions studying specimens from Yokohama, Yezo [Ezo, northeast Honshu], Nagasaki, Tosa (southern Shikoku), Gifu Prefecture, Nikkō , Asama-yama (Mount Asama), Ohoyama, Tonosawa, Atami, Kanozan, Mount Fuji, Ontakisan (Mount Ontake), Yamato, Ogasawara, Ryukyu, possibly the Kuriles, Niigata, Ô-Yama, Chichibu, Usui-toge, Maibashi [Maebashi], Sonogi, Hachijo, Kanosan and Tokyo.[18] Pryer's obituary in The Japan Weekly Mail notes that Pryer had a weak constitution, was not in the habit of collecting his own specimens and 'abstented from the healthy exercise of personally collecting specimens of natural history' because he instead concentrated on his business and studies.[13] Pryer gives credit for some of his specimens to other collectors, including "Mr H. Loomis" (perhaps Henry Loomis, who was an American Missionary in Yokohama[19]), "Fenton" of Tokyo (possibly John William Fenton), Mr Maries of Nikkō (probably Charles Maries), and a Mr Ota of Nagasaki.[18]

In July 1873, via his sister Annette's husband Percy Wormald, Pryer communicated to the journal The Zoologist a report about his visit in March 1873 to see a dead giant squid that had been recovered by fishermen "off the coast of Kessarradzu, in Kadzuzar" [probably Kisarazu, Kazusa Province, now part of Chiba Prefecture]. Pryer took a measuring ruler with him and observed the squid to have had a body about 8 feet in length, with its longest arms being 6 feet long and its eyes having a diameter of 8 inches. Pryer also mentions that he had to light a cigar because by the time he visited the squid, which was being exhibited in a temple enclosure, the smell of 'bad fish' was very strong.[20]

In 1878, with Thomas Blakiston, Pryer published a catalogue of the birds of Japan.[21] The paper contains observations of bird habitat and behaviours, observed or compiled from correspondence by the authors, and the Japanese-language names for each species.[21]

In 1879 Pryer was elected a Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London: in 1878 he had sent a living "Japanese Wild Dog" to the Zoological Society's menagerie,[22] although a contemporary Zoo catalogue suggests there was a question mark as to how wild it actually was.[23] In 1879, Pryer sent the Society a living male example of the Japanese serow Capricornis crispus, the first time the living species had been seen in the U.K.[24] The serow was described as suffering in confinement on its long voyage to England, losing weight, and being aggressive with a companion animal placed in its enclosure when it first arrived at the zoo, though it improved in health after some time.[25]

Sickness and death[edit]

Pryer contracted bronchial pneumonia and died at his home in Yokohama on 17 February 1888 after 12 days.[11]

Legacy[edit]

John Henry Leech purchased most of Pryer's entomological collections after Pryer's death.[26] Leech's collection of palearctic butterflies, including Pryer's Japanese material, was gifted to the British Museum by Leech's mother Eliza after Leech died in 1900.[27]

A specimen of the crested ibis (Nipponia nippon), which had belonged to Pryer, then Henry Seebohm, and is now part of the collection of the Natural History Museum (specimen NHMUK:1897.10.30.4), was examined as part of a molecular study using museum specimens to study the historic genetics of the species compared with the current living population now that the species is critically endangered.[28]

In 2018 on Pryer's birthday June 10, local historians led by Kiyoshi Miura held a graveside ceremony at Pryer's memorial in Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery to honour Pryer's contribution to natural history research.[29]

Select publications[edit]

  • Pryer, H.: 'A Large Squid exhibited in Japan' The Zoologist, July 1873, pages 3591-3593 (1873)[20]
  • Blakiston, T. & Pryer, H.: 'A Catalogue of the Birds of Japan.' The Ibis, fourth series, number VII, pages 209-250 (July 1878)[21]
  • Pryer, H.: Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. (1886-1889) [published in three parts, the last two parts being published posthumously - part 1,[18] part II,[30] part III[31]]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d "London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms for Henry James Stovin Pryer". ancestry.co.uk.
  2. ^ a b c "The Pall Mall Budget has this paragraph:- "Particulars have just been received of the death in Japan, on the 17th of February, or Mr Harry Pryer...."". The Japan Weekly Mail (16 June 1888): 553 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ "London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns 1754-1938 for Thomas Pryer". ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
  4. ^ Cox, John Edmund (1869). "Sermons by the Rev. John Edmund Cox M.A., F.S.A." "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" A Sermon Preached in the Parish Church of St. Helen, Bishopsgate, on Sunday Morning, 25th July 1869, in Aid of the Funds of the Royal Masonic Institute for Boys, Wood Green: 2 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ "1851 England Census for Isabel Pryor [Isabel Pryer]". ancestry.co.uk.
  6. ^ "London, England Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938 for Isabel Jane Pryer". ancestry.co.uk. 1856.
  7. ^ "London Metropolitan Archives Collections Catalogue: Thorne and Company". lma.gov.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2023.
  8. ^ "Thorne, Isabel Jane, 1834-1910 (campaigner for medical education for women) | University of Edinburgh Archive and Manuscript Collections". archives.collections.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  9. ^ a b c "Foreign Residents". The Chronicle & Directory for China, Japan, the Philippines &c. 1875. p. 149.
  10. ^ "List of Passengers. Passengers Outward". The London and China Telegraph. XIII (390): 1. 20 February 1871 – via The British Newspaper Archive.
  11. ^ a b "Yokohama: Saturday, February 18th, 1888". The Japan Weekly Mail: A Review of Japanese Commerce, Politics, Literature, and Art. IX (7): 141. 18 February 1888 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ Thomas, Russell (2019-12-14). "Winding back the years in Yokohama's Yamate district". The Japan Times. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  13. ^ a b c d e "The Late Mr. H. Pryer, C.M.Z.S." The Japan Weekly Mail. IX (8): 181. 25 February 1888 – via Google Books.
  14. ^ Sharp, David. "The President's Address". Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London for the Year 1888: xlix – via Google Books.
  15. ^ Pryer, H. Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Vol. I. Yokohama: Published by the author. p. 2.
  16. ^ Pryer, H. "Collecting". Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Vol. I. Yokohama: Published by the author. pp. iii.
  17. ^ Pryer, H. "Collecting". Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Vol. I. Yokohama: Published by the author. pp. iv.
  18. ^ a b c Pryer, H. Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Vol. I. Yokohama: Published by the author.
  19. ^ Sixty-Sixth Annual Report of the American Bible Society. New York: American Bible Society. 1882. p. 86.
  20. ^ a b Pryer, H (July 1873). "A Large Squid exhibited in Japan". The Zoologist: 3591–3593 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  21. ^ a b c Blakiston, T; Pryer, H (1878). "A Catalogue of the Birds of Japan". The Ibis. VII [fourth series, v.2]: 209–250 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  22. ^ "Proceedings of Scientific Societies: Zoological Society of London". The Zoologist: 110. 1878 – via Google Books.
  23. ^ "Family Canidae. Genus Canis". List of the Vertebrated Animals Now or Lately Living in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London (7th ed.). 1879. p. 63.
  24. ^ "Miscellaneous". London and China Express. XXI (819): 5. 18 April 1879 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  25. ^ "The Naturalist. The Japanese Goat Antelope". The Field, the Country Gentleman's Newspaper. 14 June 1879. p. 688. Retrieved 15 April 2023.
  26. ^ Leech, J H (1888). "On the Lepidoptera of Japan and Corea. Part ii: Heterocera, Sect. i". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London: 580–581 – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  27. ^ South, Richard (1902). Catalogue of the collection of palæarctic butterflies formed by the late John Henry Leech, and presented to the trustees of the British Museum by his mother, Mrs. Eliza Leech. pp. [title page].
  28. ^ Prŷs-Jones, Robert (17 June 2019). "Adding value to collections: improving the data associated with Crested Ibis Nipponia nippon specimens held in the Natural History Museum, Tring". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 139 (2): 137–146. doi:10.25226/bboc.v139i2.2019.a6. S2CID 197582362 – via BioOne Digital Library.
  29. ^ "130th anniversary of the death of the British scholar: Graveside service in honor of achievements: Local historians at the Foreign Cemetery". townnews.co.jp (in Japanese). June 2018. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
  30. ^ Pryer, H. (Henry); Bisset, James (1886). Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Smithsonian Libraries. Yokohama : Printed at the Office of the "Japan mail", Published by the author.
  31. ^ Pryer, H. (Henry); Bisset, James (1886). Rhopalocera nihonica: a description of the butterflies of Japan. Smithsonian Libraries. Yokohama : Printed at the Office of the "Japan mail", Published by the author.
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