Robert FitzRoy
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy FRS (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra del Fuego and the Southern Cone.
Not to be confused with Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester.
Robert FitzRoy
5 July 1805
Ampton Hall, Ampton, Suffolk, England
Suicide
- Mary Henrietta O'Brien
- Maria Isabella Smyth
5
FitzRoy was a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate daily weather predictions, which he called by a new name of his own invention: "forecasts".[2] In 1854 he established what would later be called the Met Office, and created systems to get weather information to sailors and fishermen for their safety.[2] He was an able surveyor and hydrographer. As Governor of New Zealand, serving from 1843 to 1845, he tried to protect the Māori from illegal land sales claimed by British settlers.[3]
Early life and career[edit]
Robert FitzRoy was born at Ampton Hall, Ampton, Suffolk, England, into the upper echelons of the British aristocracy and a tradition of public service. Through his father, General Lord Charles FitzRoy, Robert was a fourth great-grandson of Charles II of England; his paternal grandfather was Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. His mother, Lady Frances Stewart, was the daughter of the first Marquess of Londonderry and the half-sister of Viscount Castlereagh, who became Foreign Secretary. From the age of four, Robert FitzRoy lived with his family at Wakefield Lodge, their Palladian mansion in Northamptonshire.
Robert's half-brother Sir Charles FitzRoy later served as Governor of New South Wales, Governor of Prince Edward Island and Governor of Antigua.
In February 1818 at the age of 12, FitzRoy entered the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and in the following year he entered the Royal Navy. At the age of 14, he embarked as a voluntary student aboard the frigate HMS Owen Glendower, which sailed to South America in the middle of 1820, and returned in January 1822. He was promoted to midshipman while on the vessel, then served as such on HMS Hind.
He completed his course with distinction and was promoted lieutenant on 7 September 1824, having passed the examination with 'full numbers' (100%), the first to achieve this result. After serving on HMS Thetis, in 1828 he was appointed flag lieutenant to Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Waller Otway, commander-in-chief of the South American station, aboard HMS Ganges.
At that time Beagle, under Captain Pringle Stokes, was carrying out a hydrographic survey of Tierra del Fuego, under the overall command of Captain Phillip Parker King in HMS Adventure. Pringle Stokes became severely depressed and fatally shot himself. Under Lieutenant Skyring, the ship sailed to Rio de Janeiro, where Otway appointed FitzRoy as (temporary) captain of the Beagle on 15 December 1828. By the ship's return to England on 14 October 1830, FitzRoy had established his reputation as a surveyor and commander.
During the survey, some of his men were camping onshore when a group of Fuegian natives made off with their boat. His ship gave chase and, after a scuffle, the culprits' families were brought on board as hostages. Eventually FitzRoy held two boys, a girl and two men (one man escaped.) As it was not possible to put them ashore conveniently, he decided to "civilise the savages", teaching them "English ... the plainer truths of Christianity ... and the use of common tools" before returning them as missionaries.[4]
The sailors gave them names: the girl was called Fuegia Basket (so named because the replacement for the stolen boat was an improvised coracle that resembled a basket), the younger boy Jemmy Button (FitzRoy allegedly 'purchased' him with a large pearl button), the man York Minster (after the large rock so-named near which he was captured). The second, elder, boy he named Boat Memory. FitzRoy brought the four back with the ship to England. Boat Memory died following a smallpox vaccination. The others were cared for and taught by the trainee missionary Richard Matthews; they were considered civilised enough to be presented at Court to King William IV and Queen Adelaide in the summer of 1831.
Personal life[edit]
Robert FitzRoy married twice. He married Mary Henrietta O'Brien, daughter of Major General Edward James O'Brien and Rachel Charlotte Frobisher, in 1836.[34] They had four children: Emily-Unah, Fanny, Katherine and Robert O'Brien. After the death of his first wife, he married Maria Isabella Smyth, daughter of John Henry Smyth of Heath Hall, Heath, West Yorkshire (son of the politician John Smyth), in London in 1854. Smyth had married his first cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anne FitzRoy—both being grandchildren of the 3rd Duke of Grafton, as was Robert FitzRoy. Lady Elizabeth was daughter of the 4th Duke of Grafton and was a first cousin of Robert FitzRoy. Maria Isabella was therefore Robert's first cousin once removed. They had one daughter, Laura Maria Elizabeth (1858–1943).[34]
In fiction[edit]
The BBC made a BAFTA award-winning television series in 1978 titled The Voyage of Charles Darwin where Captain Robert Fitzroy was played by actor Andrew Burt with Malcolm Stoddard as Darwin with a storyline that followed the historic interaction between Darwin and FitzRoy before and after their time together on HMS Beagle.
[42]
In 1997, the play FitzRoy by Juliet Aykroyd was first performed at the University of Reading.[43] It has since been performed under the title The Ostrich and the Dolphin[44] – alluding to Darwin's rhea and the dusky dolphin, named Delphinus fitzroyi by Darwin – before being published as Darwin & FitzRoy in October 2013.[45]
A novel by Argentinian writer, Sylvia Iparraguirre, entitled Tierra del Fuego, was published in 2000.[46] It retells the story of Fitzroy's experiment with "civilizing" the Yamaná from the perspective of a fictional narrator, British-Argentinian Jack Guevarra. The novel received the Sor Juana de la Cruz prize and was translated into English by Hardie St. Martin.[47]
A novel entitled This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson was published in 2005 (it was published in the U.S. in 2006 under the title To the Edge of the World). The novel's plot followed the lives of FitzRoy, Darwin and others connected with the Beagle expeditions, following them between the years of 1828 and 1865. It was a nominee on the long list for the 2005 Man Booker Prize[48] (although Thompson died in November 2005).
The novel Darwin's Dreams by Sean Hoade was published in 2008 and republished in a new edition in 2016. The novel begins with the first meeting of Darwin and FitzRoy and ends with Darwin receiving notice of FitzRoy's suicide. The plot is interlaced with fictional "dreams" that imagine how the world would be if the ideas of evolutionary thinkers over the millennia had been literally true. The dreams also show how Darwin's subconscious dealt with major themes in his life such as the death of his beloved daughter Annie and his lifelong friendship and rivalry with FitzRoy.[49]
The play Darwins Kapten was published by Henning Mankell in 2009, and had its world premiere in 2010 at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. It is about Darwin and his journey on the Beagle: many years after the five-year long voyage, Darwin receives a message that his captain on the ship, FitzRoy, has died by suicide. The play portrays the reception of Darwin's discoveries, as well as the consequences of taking a stand against existing ideas in a world that is built on belief in God as the only creator of life.[50]
