The Weather Experiment

Chapter 7: Steady Eyes, Delicate Skies

1 HL. FB Minute Book 1846

2 Ibid.

3 Robert FitzRoy, Good Words, 1 June 1866

4 Darwin Correspondence Database, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1002, accessed on 13 September 2014

5 The Life Boat, 2 October 1865

6 Captain Robert FitzRoy, Captain Fitz Roy’s Statement (of Circumstances which led to a Personal Collision between Mr Sheppard and Captain Fitz Roy). August 1841 (London, 1841)

7 FitzRoy, Good Words, 1 June 1866

8 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 155

9 Ibid. p. 334

10 Ibid. p. 335

11 FitzRoy, Good Words, 1 June 1866

12 http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1002, accessed on 13 September 2014

13 Howard, Seven Lectures on Meteorology, p. 40

14 Ibid. p. 54

15 HL. Francis Beaufort Pocket Book, August 1846

16 Illustrated London News, 8 August 1846

17 Jonathan D. C. Webb, ‘The Hailstones of 1 August 1846 in Central and Eastern England’, Weather, Vol. 51, issue 12 (December 1996) pp. 413–19

18 ‘On the Amount of Radiation of Heat, at Night, from the Earth, and from Various Bodies Placed on or Near the Surface of the Earth’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, January 1847

19 George Biddell Airy, Autobiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896) p. 2

20 James Glaisher, Camille Flammarion, W. De Fonvielle and Gaston Tissandier, Travels in the Air (London: Bentley & Son, 1871) p. 29

21 Ibid. p. 29

22 Illustrated London News, 16 March 1844

23 Ibid.

24 Edinburgh Review, July 1838

25 James A. Secord, Visions of Science: Books and Readers at the Dawn of the Victorian Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p. 112

26 John Frederic Daniell, Meteorological Essays and Observations (London: Underwood, 1823) p. xi

27 Illustrated London News, 11 January 1845

28 ‘The Game of Chess Played between London and Portsmouth’, Illustrated London News, 12 April 1845

29 William Marriott, ‘The Earliest Telegraphic Daily Meteorological Reports and Weather Maps’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 29 (1903) p. 123

30 Ibid. p. 130

31 RS. EC/1849/07

32 RS. James Glaisher letter to Council, 15 January 1850, MM/21/70

33 Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 20 April 1850

34 Marriott, ‘Earliest Telegraphic Daily Meteorological Reports and Weather Maps’

35 Illustrated London News, 3 May 1851

36 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 64, 1904, p. 280

Chapter 8: Beginnings

1 RS. EC/1851/07

2 FitzRoy’s Memorandum, quoted in Gribbin and Gribbin, FitzRoy, pp. 301–5

3 Frederick Burkhardt (ed.), Origins: Selected Letters of Charles Darwin, 1822–1859. Anniversary Edition, p. 45

4 Darwin Correspondence Database, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1014, accessed on 13 September 2014

5 Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith, The Correspondence of Charles Darwin: 1821–1836, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) p. 226

6 http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-424, accessed on 13 September 2014

7 GL. Robert FitzRoy to Sir Thomas Gladstone, 14 April 1852

8 http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1554A, accessed on 13 September 2014

9 NA. BJ 7/2 – Maury’s plan for synoptic charts: memorandum

10 NA. BJ 7/109 – Letter from G. B. Airy to Henry James regarding decision on which government department the work of digesting meteorological observations should be attached to

11 NA. BJ 7/113 – Memorandum by Robert FitzRoy ‘with reference to the proposition of Lieutenant Maury’

12 NA. BJ 7/123 – Memorandum by Robert FitzRoy on the establishment of a Meteorological Office, its function and staffing

13 Robert FitzRoy, ‘On British Storms’, Report of the Meeting of the British Association (London: John Murray, 1860) p. 42

14 HC Deb. 30 June 1854, Vol. 134, cc. 959–1008

15 Lequeux, Le Verrier, p. 278

16 Ibid. p. 278

17 Nautical Magazine, Vol. 31 (1862) p. 364

18 M. Dickens and Georgina Hogarth, The Letters of Charles Dickens, two vols (London, 1880) p. 345

19 Illustrated London News, 5 January 1850

20 NA. BJ 7/108 – Letter from George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal, Royal Observatory, Greenwich, to Henry James regarding printing of meteorological observations and supporting objective of another meteorological conference

21 Manchester Guardian, 1 January 1855

22 James Glaisher, ‘Snow Crystals in 1855’, Transactions of the Microscopical Society of London, Vol. III, p. 179

23 Ibid. p. 180

24 Ibid. p. 181

25 Ibid. p. 181

26 Ibid. p. 183

27 Ibid. p. 184

28 NA. BJ 7/133 – Draft circular by Robert FitzRoy on the value of meteorology to shipping

29 NA. BJ 7/8 – Office arrangements

30 NA. BJ 7/77 – Letter from Robert FitzRoy to Matthew Maury

31 NA. BJ 7/544 – Copy of Robert FitzRoy’s memorandum ‘The Routine of the Meteorological Office’ listing duties of himself and his staff, Lieutenant Simpkinson, Assistant, William Pattrickson, Chief Clerk and Draughtsman, J. H. Babington, Mr Townsend and Mr Harding

32 NA. BJ 7/153 – Correspondence between Henry James and Robert FitzRoy regarding FitzRoy’s proposals for a new meteorological register and differing opinions as to the form of log

33 The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Vol. X, July–December 1855, p. 377

34 RS. 25 Lowndes Street, 20 February 1841

35 RS. To Sir John Herschel, 4 May 1858

36 Ibid.

37 FitzRoy Barometer and Weather Guide. Second Edition (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1859) p. 5

38 Ibid. p. 14

39 Ibid. p. 19

40 NA. BJ 7/95 – Maury to FitzRoy

41 Nicolas Courtney, Gale Force 10: The Life and Legacy of Admiral Beaufort (London: Review, 2002) p. 302

42 NA. BJ 7/707 – Death of Sir Francis Beaufort and the Beaufort Testimonial Fund: Correspondence and papers

43 BL. W. C. Redfield Correspondence, 1822–1857, 3 Vols. Microfilm, GEN MSS 1078

44 Ibid.

45 Howard, Seven Lectures on Meteorology, p. 23

46 New York Times, 19 August 1858

47 Colburn’s United Service Magazine, 1859, Part III, p. 572

Chapter 9: Dangerous Paths

1 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 311

2 Ibid. p. 312

3 Alexander McKee, The Golden Wreck: the tragedy of the Royal Charter (Bebbington: Avid Publications, 2000) p. 31

4 Ibid. p. 37

5 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 316

6 Ibid. p. 306

7 Ibid. p. 320

8 McKee, The Golden Wreck, p. 67

9 Ibid. p. 104

10 W. F. Peacock, A Ramble to the Wreck of the Royal Charter (Manchester: Coles, 1860) p. 4

11 ‘The Shipwreck’, in M. Slater and J. Drew (eds), Dickens’ Journalism, ‘The Uncommercial Traveller’ and Other Papers (London: Dent, 2000) pp. 30–1

12 Illustrated London News, 6 November 1859

13 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 420

14 Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XX, Fourth Series, p. 66

15 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 103

16 Ibid. p. 311

17 FitzRoy, ‘On British Storms’, p. 42

18 FitzRoy, The Weather Book, p. 320

19 Liverpool Mercury, 28 September 1861

20 FitzRoy, ‘On British Storms’, p. 43

21 Darwin Correspondence Database, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2567, accessed on 11 September 2014

22 Nicolls, Evolution’s Captain, p. 318

23 Howard, Seven Lectures on Meteorology, p. 11

24 Thomas Forster, Annals of Some Remarkable Aerial and Alpine Voyages (London: Keating & Brown, 1832) p. 76

25 Ibid. p. 78

26 Glaisher et al., Travels in the Air, p. 30

27 Ibid. p. 43

28 Ibid. p. 43

29 Transactions of the Meteorological Society Instituted in the Year 1823 Vol. One, p. 57

30 Glaisher et al., Travels in the Air, p. 44