Francis Beaufort - Biography

Biography

Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Huguenots, who fled the French Wars of Religion in the 1500s.

Sir Francis Beaufort's father, Daniel Augustus Beaufort, was a Protestant clergyman from Navan, County Meath, Ireland, and a member of the learned Royal Irish Academy. Francis was born at Navan on 24 May 1774. Since Francis was to become eminent in nautical maps, it is noteworthy that Francis's father created and published a new map of Ireland in 1792. Francis grew up in Wales and Ireland until age fourteen. He then left school and went to sea, but later in life had become sufficiently self-educated to associate with some of the greatest scientists and applied mathematicians of his time, including Herschel, Airy, and Babbage.

Francis Beaufort had a lifelong keen awareness of the value of accurate charts for those risking the seas, having been shipwrecked himself at age fifteen due to a faulty chart, and his life's biggest accomplishments were in nautical charting.

Beginning on a merchant ship of the British East India Company, Beaufort rose (during the Napoleonic Wars) to Midshipman, Lieutenant (on 10 May 1796) and Commander (on 13 November 1800). He served on the fifth rate frigate HMS Aquilon during the battle of the Glorious First of June, when Aquilon rescued the dismasted HMS Defence and exchanged broadsides with the French ship-of-the line, Impetueux.

When serving on HMS Phaeton, Beaufort was badly wounded leading a cutting-out operation off Malaga in 1800 that resulted in the capture of the 14-gun polacca Calpe. While recovering, during which he received a "paltry" pension of £45 p.a., he helped his brother-in-law Richard Lovell Edgeworth to construct a semaphore line from Dublin to Galway. He spent two years at this activity, for which he would accept no remuneration.

He returned to active service and was appointed a Captain (on 30 May 1810) in the Royal Navy. Whereas other wartime officers sought leisurely pursuits at each opportunity, Beaufort spent his leisure time taking soundings and bearings, making astronomical observations to determine longitude and latitude, and measuring shorelines. His results were compiled in new charts.

The Admiralty gave Beaufort his first ship command, HMS Woolwich, and gave him the task of conducting a hydrographic survey of the Rio de la Plata estuary in South America. Experts were very impressed by the survey Beaufort brought back. Notably, Alexander Dalrymple remarked in a note to the Admiralty in March 1808, that "we have few officers (indeed I do not know one) in our Service who have half his professional knowledge and ability, and in zeal and perseverance he cannot be excelled".