Fitzroy, Robert

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Fitzroy, Robert

 

Born July 5, 1805, at Ampton Hall, Suffolk; died Apr. 30, 1865, in Norwood, Surrey. English hydrographer and meteorologist; vice admiral.

Between 1828 and 1830, in an expedition under Commander P. P. King, Fitzroy surveyed the southern tip of South America on the Beagle. From 1831 to 1836 he headed the oceanographic expedition on the Beagle, in which C. R. Darwin participated; during the expedition the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, and the Strait of Magellan were surveyed. In 1854, Fitzroy was appointed head of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade and organized the meteorological service in England, including a weather service to forecast storms.

WORKS

Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, vols. 1–3. London, 1839.

REFERENCES

Khrgian, A. Kh. Ocherki razvitiia meteorologii. Leningrad, 1948.
Magidovich, I. P. lstoriia otkrytiia i issledovaniia Tsentral’noi i luzhnoi Ameriki. Moscow, 1965.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.