Blakiston, Thomas Wright

Japanese: ブラキストン - Ｂｌａｋｉｓｔｏｎ，ＴｈｏｍａｓＷｒｉｇｈｔ

Year of death: 1891.10.15(1891.10.15)
Born: December 27, 1832
A British businessman and ornithologist who came to Japan at the end of the Edo period. Born into an aristocratic family in Hampshire, he was a former soldier who also participated in the Crimean War. From 1863 (Bunkyu 3) until he left Japan in 1883 (Meiji 16), he worked in the lumber industry in Hakodate and trade with China and Russia. During the Boso War, he worked to protect the lives and property of Japanese residents, and contributed to the local community by designing waterworks and piers, proposing urban modernization, and teaching how to make natural ice. He collected birds throughout Japan, including through explorations in Hokkaido and the southern Kuril Islands, and the results of his work were published in the Catalogue of the Birds of Japan (1878, 1882, later published alone in 1884), which he co-authored with Pryor, and which contributed greatly to ornithology in Japan, and led to the identification of the Tsugaru Strait as the boundary between animal distribution in North Asia and Central Asia (Blakiston's Line). His meteorological observations in Hakodate were also pioneers of meteorological observation in Japan. <Works> "Japan in Ezo" <References> Yoshiko Yanagi, "The Life of Thomas W. Blakiston" (Appendix to "Japan in Ezo")

(Naohide Isono)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：1891.10.15(1891.10.15)
生年：1832.12.27
幕末に来日したイギリス人実業家,鳥類研究者。ハンプシャー州の貴族の出。元軍人でクリミア戦争にも参加。文久3(1863)年から明治16(1883)年の離日まで,函館で製材業,対清・ロシア貿易に従事した。箱館戦争の際には日本人住民の人命,財産の保護に努め,上水道,桟橋の設計,都市近代化の建言,天然氷の製法指導などでも地元に貢献した。北海道,南千島での探検をはじめ,日本各地で鳥類を採集し,その成果はプライアーとの共著『日本鳥類目録』(1878,82,のち84年同名の単独著刊)として日本の鳥類研究に大きく寄与するとともに,津軽海峡が北アジアと中部アジアの動物分布上の境界線であるとの指摘となった(ブラキストン線)。函館での気象観測は日本での測候の先駆けでもある。<著作>『蝦夷地の中の日本』<参考文献>弥永芳子「トーマス・W・ブラキストン伝」(『蝦夷地の中の日本』付篇)

(磯野直秀)

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