Former Residence of Emile Licent

Former Residence of Emile Licent

The former residence of Emile Licent is a cultural relic protection unit of Tianjin.

The former residence of Emile Licent is located at No. 117 Machang Road, Hexi District (formerly Machang Road in the British Concession), built in 1922. It was the residence in Tianjin of French missionary Emile Licent, the founder of the Beijiang Museum, and lies to the west of the former main building of Tianjin College of Commerce and Industry and the Beijiang Museum. It is a historically and culturally significant structure under key protection and is also a cultural relic protection unit of Tianjin. It currently serves as the office building of the Foreign Affairs Office of Tianjin Foreign Studies University.

Emile Licent (1876–1952) was a renowned French geologist, paleontologist, and archaeologist. In 1914, he came to China as a Jesuit priest of the Catholic Church in France. He engaged in field investigations and archaeological surveys for 25 years, traveling across various provinces in northern China, covering over 50,000 kilometers, and collecting hundreds of thousands of geological and paleontological specimens. He founded the Beijiang Museum (the predecessor of the Tianjin Natural History Museum).

In 1922, Emile Licent and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, then deputy director of the Beijiang Museum, discovered a collection of human and animal fossils along the Sjara-osso-gol River in Uxin Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. These were the earliest discovered paleoanthropological fossils within China.

In the summer of 1923, Emile Licent and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin joined forces again to travel northward, where they discovered and excavated the Shuidonggou site in Ningxia. This made it the earliest discovered, excavated, and systematically studied Late Paleolithic cultural site in China, making a significant contribution to the prehistoric archaeology of China.

Emile Licent authored works such as "Mountain Afforestation in Northeastern China," "Ten Years of Exploration in North China (the Yellow River and Other Tributaries of the Bohai Gulf)," and "Travels in the Sanggan River Grasslands." He also co-authored major works including "Ethnographic Expeditions in North China and Mongolia" and "Birds of the Beijiang Museum and Tree Specimens in Its Collection."

Emile Licent returned to France in 1938 and passed away there in 1952.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of Cultural Relic Protection Units in Tianjin