Alan Owston

Who was Alan Owston?

Alan Owston was born on 7 August 1853 at Pirbright, Surrey and was buried on 30 November 1915 at Yokohama in Japan. He was a collector of Asian wildlife, businessman and yachtsman, and founded the Yokohama Yacht Club in Japan. Alan Owston left England for Asia in 1871, working as a merchant in Japan and was also busy as an amateur naturalist.

The Owston's palm civet or Owston's civet is named after him.

Owston collected or arranged to have collected a wide range of marine specimens, notably fish from Japan and China, a collection once hailed "one of the most important collections of its kind". Carnegie Museum of Natural History Pittsburgh has a collection of 1,364 of his Asian fishes. Some other animals named after him include the Trismegistus owstoni fish, a clam, a frog, and woodpecker. His bird collection was also hailed for "the prodigious number of bird specimens". His collections can be found in many museums today, notably the Smithsonian collection of his reptiles, birds and fish. He is also noted for his deep-sea sponge collection at the Natural History Museum, London which also has a charming Victorian photographic portrait of him from Japan with one of his giant sponges.