Alexander Cameron Sim (28 August 1840 – 28 November 1900) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

-born pharmacist and entrepreneur active in Japan during the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. He was also the founder of the

Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club The Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club is Japan's oldest sports club, founded September 23, 1870 by Alexander Cameron Sim. The Club moved to a newly manufactured building at the end of 1870 and held its first-ever regatta on December 24, of that same y ...

Biography

Sim was born in

Aberlour Aberlour ( gd, Obar Lobhair) is a village in Moray, Scotland, south of Elgin on the road to Grantown. The Lour burn is a tributary of the River Spey, and it and the surrounding parish are both named Aberlour, but the name is more commonly used ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in 1840. He relocated to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in his youth, and received a post as a pharmacist at the

Royal London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and spe ...

in 1862. In 1866, he volunteered for an overseas assignment, and was sent to the

Royal Naval Hospital A Royal Naval Hospital (RNH) was a hospital operated by the British Royal Navy for the care and treatment of sick and injured naval personnel. A network of these establishments were situated across the globe to suit British interests. They were p ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, where he spent the next 3.5 years. In late 1869, he moved to

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, Japan, where he resided in the

treaty port Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

, but moved to

Kobe Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...

in 1870, where he initially worked as a pharmacist for the foreign firm ''Llewellyn Shōkai''. However, he began his own company, ''AC Sim Shōkai'', later the same year. Sim's company specialized in the import and distribution of medicines and medical supplies. In 1884, Sim introduced a

carbonated beverage A soft drink (see § Terminology for other names) is a drink that usually contains water (often carbonated), a sweetener, and a natural and/or artificial flavoring. The sweetener may be a sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice, a sugar ...

based on

lemonade Lemonade is a sweetened lemon-flavored beverage. There are varieties of lemonade found throughout the world. In North America and South Asia, cloudy still lemonade is the most common variety. There it is traditionally a homemade drink using le ...

to the

Kobe foreign settlement The , also known as the Kobe foreign concession, was a foreign settlement located about 3.5 kilometers east of the Port of Kobe, in the future Chūō-ku of Kobe, Japan. Established based on the Ansei Treaties, it existed from January 1, 1868, to ...

. This drink, called "mabu soda" for "marble soda" due to the marbles placed in the bottle for opening action, soon became very popular with the local Japanese after it was advertised in the Tokyo Mainichi Newspaper as a preventative for

cholera Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...

. The drink remains a popular soft drink, sold worldwide, under the name of ''

ramune () is a Japanese carbonated soft drink. It was introduced in 1884 in Kobe by the British pharmacist Alexander Cameron Sim. Like Banta, an Indian lemon drink, is available in a Codd-neck bottle, a heavy glass bottle whose mouth is sealed by a ...

'' to this day. Sim was a strong supporter of athletic activities, and founded the Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club on 23 September 1870. He also organized a volunteer firefighting organization within the foreign community, and built a

fire lookout tower A fire lookout tower, fire tower or lookout tower, provides housing and protection for a person known as a "fire lookout" whose duty it is to search for wildfires in the wilderness. It is a small building, usually on the summit of a mountain or ...

near his residence. He also organized relief and community support efforts in the aftermath of the 1891 Mino–Owari earthquake and the 1896 Sanriku earthquake. Sim died on 28 November 1900 of

typhoid fever Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several ...

. He is buried in the Kobe Foreign cemetery on

Mount Futatabi Mount is often used as part of the name of specific mountains, e.g. Mount Everest. Mount or Mounts may also refer to: Places * Mount, Cornwall, a village in Warleggan parish, England * Mount, Perranzabuloe, a hamlet in Perranzabuloe parish, C ...

References

*Murphy, Kevin C. ''The American merchant experience in nineteenth-century Japan''. Routledge (2002)

External links

Kobe Regatta & Athletic Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sim, Alexander Cameron 1840 births 1900 deaths Scottish expatriates in Japan People of Meiji-period Japan Deaths from typhoid fever Infectious disease deaths in Japan 19th-century Scottish businesspeople