Carl Bock (explorer)

Carl Bock (1882)

Carl Alfred Bock (17 September 1849 – 10 August 1932) was a Norwegian government official, author, naturalist and explorer. ^[1]

Bock was born in Copenhagen, Denmark when his parents were traveling on business. He was the son of Carl Henirich Bock (1812–77) and Regitze Hansen (1826–1900). His parents had a cotton factory in Sweden. He studied natural sciences in London, England. He grew up in Kristiansand.

Bock served for six years at the Norwegian-Swedish Consulate in Grimsby, before he came to London in 1875. He obtained private funding, especially from Arthur Hay, 9th Marquess of Tweeddale for a journey of discovery to Sumatra and Borneo from 1878 to 1879. With the support of the King Chulalongkorn, he traveled in 1881 around the interior of Siam and Laos. In 1886, he was Norwegian-Swedish vice-consul and in 1893 consul general in Shanghai. From 1899 to 1900, he was consul in Antwerp and 1900–1903 Consul General in Lisbon. He left the service in 1903 and settled in Brussels.^[2]

He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (Videnskapsselskapet i Kristiania) and was a knight, first class of the Order of St. Olav.^[3] His large collection of artifacts from Thailand and Indonesia is now kept at the British Museum in London.^[4]

Selected works

• Descriptions of two new Species of Shells from China and Japan (1878)
• List of Land and Freshwater. Shells collected in Sumatra and Borneo, with Descriptions of new Species (1881)
• The Head Hunters of Borneo; A Narrative of Travel up the Mahakkam and Down the Barito; Also, Journeyings in Sumatra (1882)
• Temples and Elephants: The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration Through Upper Siam and Lao (1884)

References

Other sources

• Reece, Bob (1995) Carl Bock, explorations and travels in Sumatra, Borneo, and Siam in "Explorers of South-East Asia: six lives" by Victor T King (Oxford University Press)

Category:Norwegian diplomats