Fitzroy

Fitzroy, ROBERT, admiral and meteorologist, a grandson of the third Duke of Grafton, was born at Ampton Hall, near Bury St Edmunds, July 5, 1805, and entered the navy in 1819. His first important work was that of surveying the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, 1828-30; and this work he was charged to continue on his reappointment to the command of the Beagle in 1831. On this voyage he was accompanied by Darwin, the two together publishing in 1839, three years after their return to England, a Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of H.M.S. 'Adventure' and 'Beagle', vols. i. and ii. by Fitzroy, and vol. iii. by Darwin. For two years (1843-45) he was governor of New Zealand, then a newly-constituted colony. Although placed on half-pay in 1850, he was promoted in due course to be rear-admiral (1857) and vice-admiral (1863) on the retired lists. In 1854 he received an appointment in the meteorological department of the Board of Trade, his attention being principally given in his later years to meteorology and the lifeboat service. The cheap and serviceable 'Fitzroy barometer' was made on a plan suggested by him; and it was he who instituted the system of storm warnings that has grown into the daily weather forecasts. Among his works are Meteorological Observations (1859), and Weather-book (1863), as well as Remarks on New Zealand (1846). He put an end to his own life, in a fit of mental aberration, 30th April 1865, at Norwood in Surrey.