Edward Oswald Shebbeare (3 March 1884 – 11 August 1964) was a British mountaineer, naturalist and forester who served in the Imperial Forest Service. He was a member of the 1924 British Mount Everest expedition and the deputy leader and transport officer of the 1933 expedition. He also served as transport officer on the 1929 German

Kanchenjunga Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, Kanchanjanghā (), and Khangchendzonga, is the third List of highest mountains on Earth, highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', wh ...

expedition. In 1928, he was a founding member of

The Himalayan Club The Himalayan Club is an organization founded in India in 1928 along the lines of the Alpine Club. The stated mission of the organization was "to encourage and assist Himalayan travel and exploration, and to extend knowledge of the Himalaya and a ...

. He was also a keen naturalist, particularly interested in

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species o ...

and

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae an ...

conservation. In 1940, he was the founding president of the Malayan Nature Society.

Life

Shebbeare was born in Yorkshire, son of reverend C.H. Shebbeare, vicar of Wykeham. He was educated at

Charterhouse School (God having given, I gave) , established = , closed = , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , president ...

and then trained at the

Royal Indian Engineering College The Royal Indian Engineering College (or RIEC) was a British college of Civil Engineering run by the India Office to train civil engineers for service in the Indian Public Works Department. It was located on the Cooper's Hill estate, near Egham, ...

, Cooper's Hill from 1903 to 1906. He then joined the Imperial Forestry Service on 5 November 1906, eventually becoming chief conservator of forests for

Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

. He was also particularly active in wildlife conservation, securing legal protection for the

Indian rhinoceros } The Indian rhinoceros (''Rhinoceros unicornis''), also called the Indian rhino, greater one-horned rhinoceros or great Indian rhinoceros, is a rhinoceros species native to the Indian subcontinent. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red Li ...

. In the 1930s, Shebbeare helped the Swedish nature photographer Bengt Berg carry out a pioneering

camera-trap A camera trap is a camera that is automatically triggered by a change in some activity in its vicinity, like presence of an animal or a human being. It is typically equipped with a motion sensor – usually a passive infrared (PIR) sensor ...

expedition to photograph the wildlife of

(a photograph by Berg illustrates this article). In 1938, after leaving India, Shebbeare was appointed Chief Game Warden of

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ms, Tanah Melayu British) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. U ...

. In 1942, Shebbeare's bungalow containing his library and diaries was looted by the invading Japanese army. During the

Japanese occupation of Malaya The then British colony of Malaya was gradually occupied by the Japanese between 8 December 1941 and the Allied surrender at Singapore on 16 February 1942. The Japanese remained in occupation until their surrender to the Allies in 1945. The ...

Shebbeare planned to fight as a guerrilla with Spencer Chapman. However, he was imprisoned in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. After the war he resumed his position as Game Warden, eventually retiring to England in 1947. On his participation on the Mount Everest expeditions, he said "they only took me because I knew and liked the porters (Sherpas and Tibetans), not because I could climb". He married Arabie Anne Cameron (d. 1962) in 1916 and they had a daughter.

Publications

Shebbeare wrote a novel, ''Soondar Mooni'', from the unusual perspective of an

Indian elephant The Indian elephant (''Elephas maximus indicus'') is one of four extant recognised subspecies of the Asian elephant and native to mainland Asia. Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List as the wild po ...

. He also wrote several scientific papers on forestry in India, as well as on wildlife conservation.

Other papers

*Shebbeare, E.O., 1947. The

Senoi The Senoi (also spelled Sengoi and Sng'oi) are a group of Malaysian peoples classified among the Orang Asli, the indigenous peoples of Peninsular Malaysia. They are the most numerous of the Orang Asli and widely distributed across the peninsula ...

of Malaya. ''Man'', 168. *Shebbeare, E.O., Roy, A.N. and Tyndale, H., 1948. The Great one-horned rhinoceros (''

Rhinoceros unicornis } The Indian rhinoceros (''Rhinoceros unicornis''), also called the Indian rhino, greater one-horned rhinoceros or great Indian rhinoceros, is a rhinoceros species native to the Indian subcontinent. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red Li ...

'' L). ''Jour. Bengal Nat. Hist. Soc'', 22(3). *Shebbeare, E.O. and Rao, V.S., 1958. Soondar Mooni. ''Indian Forester'', 84(11), pp. 693–696.

References

1884 births 1964 deaths English mountain climbers English explorers English foresters British naturalists British conservationists British expatriates in Malaysia Administrators in British Malaya Imperial Forestry Service officers 20th-century naturalists People from Yorkshire Indian foresters {{UK-bio-stub