Clarke Abel

Clarke Abel (1780 to 1826) was a British surgeon and naturalist. He accompanied Lord Amherst on the British mission to China in 1816 and 1817 as the embassy's chief medical officer and naturalist, travelling on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, and he set out his experiences in the Narrative of a Journey in the Interior of China, published in 1818. A shipwreck and a pirate attack on the voyage home cost him most of the specimens he had gathered, though some he had left with Sir George Staunton at Canton were returned to him. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1819 and later served as surgeon-in-chief to Lord Amherst when Amherst became governor-general of India. Abel died at Cawnpore on 24 November 1826, aged 46. The shrub Abelia chinensis and the Sumatran orangutan Pongo abelii are named for him.