Jason Wordie

Then & Now | ‘The celebrated aviary of Mr Beale’: how a Macau-based 19th century merchant and amateur naturalist set up maritime Asia’s premier private zoo

19th century merchant Thomas Beale poured some of his fortune into making a botanical and zoological garden in Macau that was the envy of many naturalists

The amateur collector’s aviary notably housed some spectacular birds of paradise, which European naturalists had thought to be mythological, not having seen any

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An 18th century watercolour of a red-plumed bird of paradise from New Guinea. They had long been dismissed by European naturalists as mythological, but wealthy 19th century merchant Thomas Beale had several in his Macau aviary for visitors to admire. Photo: Getty Images

Jason Wordie

Published: 8:15am, 1 May 2023

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, scholarly interest in the natural world rapidly expanded.

Academic generalists – often protégés of renowned scientists such as Joseph Banks – were attached to trading missions that travelled everywhere from Brazil to the Philippines.

With personal interests and accumulated knowledge that ranged from botany and ornithology to ethnology and archaeology, their sheer exuberant delight often rubbed off on those with whom they came into contact.

In time, European merchants long resident in Asia became as integral to serious scholarship as travelling botanists, plant-hunters, ornithologists, and general natural scientists.

An illustration of a country villa near Canton, China, from John Rogers Haddad’s book “The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture, 1776 to 1876”. Thomas Beale’s would have been very similar in shape and dimensions.

With few other intellectual outlets to engage them, ample financial resources and a broad range of regional contacts to leverage, some businessmen became renowned amateur naturalists and collectors in their own right.