Henry Fletcher Hance (4 Aug 1827 – 22 June 1886) was a British diplomat who devoted his spare time to the study of Chinese plants. Born in Brompton, London, his first appointment was to

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 ...

in 1844. In May 1852 in

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

he married his first wife Anne Edith Baylis, who accompanied him on his return to Hong Kong. He later became vice-consul (1861–1878) to Whampoa, consul (1878–1881) to Canton, and finally consul to

Xiamen Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an, ...

, where he died in 1886. In 1873, Hance published a supplement to

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studi ...

's 1861

He graduated as Philosophiae Doctor from the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (german: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is named after its most famous faculty member, Justus von ...

on 24 November 1849, during which time he was in China. He found, named and described (in Latin) '' Iris speculatrix'' in 1875. He was the taxonomic author of many plants. In 1857

Berthold Carl Seemann Berthold Carl Seemann (25 February 1825, in Hanover, Germany – 10 October 1871, in Nicaragua, Central America), was a German botanist. He travelled widely and collected and described plants from the Pacific and South America. In 1844 he trav ...

named the genus ''

Hancea ''Hancea'' is a genus of plants in the family Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae, the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of a genus in the family. Most ...

'' (family

Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae, the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of a genus in the family. Most spurges, such as ''Euphorbia paralias'', are herbs, but some, e ...

) in his honour. In 1878 Hance was elected a fellow of the

Linnean Society of London The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

. His first wife made paintings of flowers in Hong Kong. They had several children before she died in childbirth in 1872. His second wife was Charlotte Page Kneebone Hance (1846–1911). Hance is buried with his second wife Charlotte in

Hong Kong Cemetery Hong Kong Cemetery, formerly Hong Kong (Happy Valley) Cemetery and before that Hong Kong Colonial Cemetery, is one of the early Christian cemeteries in Hong Kong dating to its colonial era beginning in 1845. It is located beside the racecourse ...

References

*Fan, Fa-ti. British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 68–72. 1827 births 1886 deaths British botanists Fellows of the Linnean Society of London {{UK-botanist-stub