A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Lee, Sarah
LEE, SARAH,
This lady, well known to naturalists as the biographer of Cuvier, and also to the public by her numerous works of travel and natural history, was the only daughter of John E. Wallis, Esq., of Colchester, where she was born in 1791. At the age of twenty-one, she married Mr. T. E. Bowdich, from whom she doubtless received that bias towards the study of nature which she afterwards manifested. She accompanied her husband in a mission to Ashantee, during which, it is said, "she achieved wonders by her devoted love and bravery." The account of this mission was published in 1819, and there is no doubt that she greatly assisted her husband in the preparation of that, as also of the following works which succeeded it—"Taxidermy, or the art of Collecting, Preparing, and Mounting Objects of Natural History," 1820; "An Analysis of the Natural Classification of. Mammalia," 1821; "An Essay on the Superstitions, Customs, and Arts common to the Ancient Egyptians, Abyssinians, and Ashantees," 1821; and "Elements of Conchology," 1822
In 1823, Mr. Bowdich set out on another mission to Africa, accompanied by his devoted wife; from this he never returned; having died at Bathurst, near the mouth of the Gambia, in January, 1824. "The first solicitude of the bereaved widow," we are told, "was to arrange her husband's manuscripts for publication;" and as early as March of the following year appeared a handsome quarto volume, copiously illustrated, aud entitled "Excursions in Madeira and Porto Santo, during the autumn of 1823, while on his third voyage to Africa, by the late T. Edward Bowdich, Esq., conductor of the mission to Ashantee," etc.; the remainder of the title being occupied with the heads of the matter, added by the clever and indefatigable widow, to complete the narrative; which she did in such a manner as at once to give her a high position in the society of naturalists, and to gain for her general applause and sympathy.
While a widow, she spent some years in Paris, and was much in the society of Baron Cuvier and other illustrious French savants. On the death of the great naturalist, she repaid his many marks of kindness and esteem by a biographical memoir of some three hundred pages, being assisted in the work by some of the baron's most scientific and intimate friends. Previous to the publication of this work, she had issued her "History of British Fresh-Water Fishes," with illustrations drawn and coloured by her own hand; Cuvier, in his "Règne Animal," pronounced this to be tres belles.
Somewhere about 1830 she married Mr. Lee, and returned to England. From that time we find her name constantly on the publishing lists, chiefly as author of books for the young, founded on her travelling experiences, and natural history researches. Her "Elements of Natural History," and the volume on "Taxidermy," now in its sixth edition, are on the Privy Council List of Class Books, for national education; and, as a recognition of her services and ability, she was, two years before her death, which took place on the 23rd. of September, 1856, awarded a pension of fifty pounds per annum. In private life she is said to "have been beloved by all who knew her. Her talents she used invariably unselfishly; her spirit was oppressed with no pride of intellect or vanity."