Robert Wauchope (Royal Navy officer)
Encyclopedia
Robert Wauchope, was a British
admiral
and inventor of the time ball
. He was the fifth son of Andrew Wauchope (d.1823) of Niddrie-Marischall, Midlothian
, Scotland, and Alice Baird (d.1814), daughter of William Baird of Newbyth.
He joined the Royal Navy
in 1802, was commissioned in 1808, and served in the Napoleonic wars
, notably as a lieutenant in Captain Samuel Pym
's disastrous attack on Mauritius
in August 1810. After the destruction of his ship, the Magicienne
, Wauchope set off in a cutter to Réunion
, 140 miles away, to warn Commodore Josias Rowley
. He was picked up by Rowley the next day, and took part in Admiral Albemarle Bertie's
capture of Mauritius in December 1810. He was promoted to captain in 1814 after which he commanded . He visited Napoleon on St Helena 1816 and was stationed for the next three years at the Cape
and St Helena.
He became "born again of the Holy Spirit" (Short Narrative, 84) in 1819 and expressed his disapproval to Admiral Robert Plampin
of his "living openly with a kept mistress" (ibid, 87). His religious views contributed to him spending all but four years thereafter on half pay.
He married in 1822 Anne Carnegie, fourth daughter of Sir David Carnegie, bt.
, and settled in Easter Duddingston, Midlothian
and later at Moorhouse Hall in Cumberland
. Their only child died a minor in 1844.
It was then essential for the calculation of longitude
that a ship's marine chronometer
be accurate, but the astronomical calculations to ensure accuracy were such that could only conveniently be made in observatories. In 1818 Wauchope became interested in developing a method of signalling from an observatory to ships the exact time so that the chronometers on board could be rated. He advised the Admiralty
of his Plan for ascertaining the rates of chronometers by signal, which described his "time ball
", a large hollow metal sphere rigged on a pole and attached to a mechanism so that it might be dropped at an exact time each day. In 1829 a test was made of his device at Portsmouth
on the south coast of England, where the Royal Naval Academy
was situated. In 1833 time balls were constructed at Greenwich
, and in 1836 at Liverpool
and Edinburgh
. Wauchope submitted his scheme to American and French ambassadors when they visited England. The US Naval Observatory was established in Washington D.C. and the first American time ball went into service in 1845.
In 1834 his brother-in-law, Admiral Patrick Campbell
, invited him to be his flag captain. Wauchope accepted on the condition that no prostitutes were to be allowed on board the ship. His insistence on this resulted in him being summoned before Sir Thomas Hardy the First Sea Lord
, who ordered him to resign his commission. Wauchope told Sir Thomas: "It is written that whoremongers shall not enter heaven" (ibid, 103), and appealed to Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was allowed to take command of HMS Thalia in June 1834 and was again stationed at the Cape where he became an intimate friend of Sir John Herschel
. In 1836-7 he patrolled off West Africa
to intercept slavers. His active naval career ended on his return to England in 1838.
He retired to Dacre Lodge in Cumberland. In 1849 he was promoted to rear admiral, in 1856 to vice admiral and in 1861, the year before his death, to Admiral of the Blue. In that year he published an anti-Darwinian pamphlet, Proofs of the Possible Cause and Recent Date of the Boulder Drift, Connecting it with the Post Tertiary Period and Noachian Deluge, and wrote his memoirs, A Short Narrative, for the instruction of his great nephew, Andrew Gilbert Wauchope
.
At the time of his death, time balls were in use on every inhabited continent. Although rendered obsolete on the introduction of radio time signals, operational examples survive atop the Royal Observatories
at Greenwich
and Cape Town
, at Sydney Observatory
, at Lyttelton
in New Zealand
, on Nelson's Monument on Calton Hill in Edinburgh
, and at Deal
.
He is buried in Dacre Churchyard, Penrith
, Cumbria
, England
. (i.e. near Dacre Lodge) under an unusual tombstone that is triangular in cross section. The grave is immediately on the right as one enters the churchyard.
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
admiral
Admiral of the Fleet (Royal Navy)
Admiral of the fleet is the highest rank of the British Royal Navy and other navies, which equates to the NATO rank code OF-10. The rank still exists in the Royal Navy but routine appointments ceased in 1996....
and inventor of the time ball
Time ball
A time ball is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore...
. He was the fifth son of Andrew Wauchope (d.1823) of Niddrie-Marischall, Midlothian
Midlothian
Midlothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It borders the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and the City of Edinburgh council areas....
, Scotland, and Alice Baird (d.1814), daughter of William Baird of Newbyth.
He joined the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
in 1802, was commissioned in 1808, and served in the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, notably as a lieutenant in Captain Samuel Pym
Samuel Pym
Sir Samuel Pym KCB was a British admiral, brother of Sir William Pym.In June 1788, Pym joined the Royal Navy as captain's servant of the frigate Eurydice...
's disastrous attack on Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
in August 1810. After the destruction of his ship, the Magicienne
French frigate Magicienne (1778)
The Magicienne was a frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The British captured her in 1781 and she served with the Royal Navy until her crew burned her in 1810 to prevent her capture after she grounded at Île de France...
, Wauchope set off in a cutter to Réunion
Réunion
Réunion is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France...
, 140 miles away, to warn Commodore Josias Rowley
Josias Rowley
Admiral Sir Josias Rowley, 1st Baronet GCB, GCMG , known as "The Sweeper of the Seas", was a naval officer who commanded the campaign that captured the French Indian Ocean islands of Réunion and Mauritius in 1810.-Naval career:...
. He was picked up by Rowley the next day, and took part in Admiral Albemarle Bertie's
Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet
Admiral Sir Albemarle Bertie, 1st Baronet, KCB, was a long-serving and at time controversial officer of the British Royal Navy who saw extensive service in his career but also courted controversy with several of his actions....
capture of Mauritius in December 1810. He was promoted to captain in 1814 after which he commanded . He visited Napoleon on St Helena 1816 and was stationed for the next three years at the Cape
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony, part of modern South Africa, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, with the founding of Cape Town. It was subsequently occupied by the British in 1795 when the Netherlands were occupied by revolutionary France, so that the French revolutionaries could not take...
and St Helena.
He became "born again of the Holy Spirit" (Short Narrative, 84) in 1819 and expressed his disapproval to Admiral Robert Plampin
Robert Plampin
Vice-Admiral Robert Plampin was a British Royal Navy officer during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, serving in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars, but best known for his time as commander of the British colony of Saint Helena...
of his "living openly with a kept mistress" (ibid, 87). His religious views contributed to him spending all but four years thereafter on half pay.
He married in 1822 Anne Carnegie, fourth daughter of Sir David Carnegie, bt.
Sir David Carnegie, 4th Baronet
Sir David Carnegie of Pitcarrow, 4th Baronet was a Scottish politician and de jure 7th Earl of Southesk, 7th Baron Carnegie of Kinnaird and 7th Baron Carnegie, of Kinnaird and Leuchards.-Background:...
, and settled in Easter Duddingston, Midlothian
Midlothian
Midlothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It borders the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and the City of Edinburgh council areas....
and later at Moorhouse Hall in Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....
. Their only child died a minor in 1844.
It was then essential for the calculation of longitude
Longitude
Longitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the Earth's surface. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds, and denoted by the Greek letter lambda ....
that a ship's marine chronometer
Marine chronometer
A marine chronometer is a clock that is precise and accurate enough to be used as a portable time standard; it can therefore be used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation...
be accurate, but the astronomical calculations to ensure accuracy were such that could only conveniently be made in observatories. In 1818 Wauchope became interested in developing a method of signalling from an observatory to ships the exact time so that the chronometers on board could be rated. He advised the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
of his Plan for ascertaining the rates of chronometers by signal, which described his "time ball
Time ball
A time ball is a large painted wooden or metal ball that drops at a predetermined time, principally to enable sailors to check their marine chronometers from their boats offshore...
", a large hollow metal sphere rigged on a pole and attached to a mechanism so that it might be dropped at an exact time each day. In 1829 a test was made of his device at Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
on the south coast of England, where the Royal Naval Academy
Royal Naval Academy
The Royal Naval Academy was established at Portsmouth Dockyard as a facility to train officers for the Royal Navy. The founders' intentions were to provide an alternative means to recruit officers and to provide standardised training, education and admission.-Training:In 1773, a shore side...
was situated. In 1833 time balls were constructed at Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
, and in 1836 at Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
. Wauchope submitted his scheme to American and French ambassadors when they visited England. The US Naval Observatory was established in Washington D.C. and the first American time ball went into service in 1845.
In 1834 his brother-in-law, Admiral Patrick Campbell
Patrick Campbell (Royal Navy officer)
Vice-Admiral Sir Patrick Campbell, KCB was a senior British Royal Navy officer of the early nineteenth century who was distinguished by his service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars...
, invited him to be his flag captain. Wauchope accepted on the condition that no prostitutes were to be allowed on board the ship. His insistence on this resulted in him being summoned before Sir Thomas Hardy the First Sea Lord
First Sea Lord
The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service; it was formerly known as First Naval Lord. He also holds the title of Chief of Naval Staff, and is known by the abbreviations 1SL/CNS...
, who ordered him to resign his commission. Wauchope told Sir Thomas: "It is written that whoremongers shall not enter heaven" (ibid, 103), and appealed to Sir James Graham, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was allowed to take command of HMS Thalia in June 1834 and was again stationed at the Cape where he became an intimate friend of Sir John Herschel
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS ,was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work...
. In 1836-7 he patrolled off West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
to intercept slavers. His active naval career ended on his return to England in 1838.
He retired to Dacre Lodge in Cumberland. In 1849 he was promoted to rear admiral, in 1856 to vice admiral and in 1861, the year before his death, to Admiral of the Blue. In that year he published an anti-Darwinian pamphlet, Proofs of the Possible Cause and Recent Date of the Boulder Drift, Connecting it with the Post Tertiary Period and Noachian Deluge, and wrote his memoirs, A Short Narrative, for the instruction of his great nephew, Andrew Gilbert Wauchope
Andrew Gilbert Wauchope
Major-General Andrew Gilbert Wauchope was a British Army officer, killed commanding a brigade at the Battle of Magersfontein in the South African War....
.
At the time of his death, time balls were in use on every inhabited continent. Although rendered obsolete on the introduction of radio time signals, operational examples survive atop the Royal Observatories
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich , in London, England played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and is best known as the location of the prime meridian...
at Greenwich
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich , in London, England played a major role in the history of astronomy and navigation, and is best known as the location of the prime meridian...
and Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, at Sydney Observatory
Sydney Observatory
Sydney Observatory is located on a hill now known as 'Observatory Hill' in an area in the centre of Sydney. The site evolved from a fort built on 'Windmill Hill' in the early 19th century to an astronomical observatory during the nineteenth century...
, at Lyttelton
Lyttelton, New Zealand
Lyttelton is a port town on the north shore of Lyttelton Harbour close to Banks Peninsula, a suburb of Christchurch on the eastern coast of the South Island of New Zealand....
in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, on Nelson's Monument on Calton Hill in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, and at Deal
Deal, Kent
Deal is a town in Kent England. It lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover and eight miles south of Ramsgate. It is a former fishing, mining and garrison town...
.
He is buried in Dacre Churchyard, Penrith
Penrith, Cumbria
Penrith was an urban district between 1894 and 1974, when it was merged into Eden District.The authority's area was coterminous with the civil parish of Penrith although when the council was abolished Penrith became an unparished area....
, Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. (i.e. near Dacre Lodge) under an unusual tombstone that is triangular in cross section. The grave is immediately on the right as one enters the churchyard.
Sources
- Ian R. Bartky and Steven J. Dick, "The First Time Balls", Journal of the History of Astronomy, 12, 155-164 (1981)
- William R. O'Byrne, A Naval Biographical Dictionary (1849)
- Robert Wauchope, 'Time Signals for Chronometers' The Nautical MagazineThe Nautical MagazineThe Nautical Magazine is a monthly magazine published by Brown Son & Ferguson containing articles of general interest to seafarers. The magazine was first published in 1832 and has variously been known as The Nautical magazine and naval chronicle for ... and Nautical magazine and journal of the...
(1836), 460-464; A short narrative of God's merciful dealings towards me (1862 - William Laird Clowes, The Royal Navy, a History, 5-6 (1900-1)
- Derek Howse, Greenwich Time and the Longitude (1997)
- Ian R. Bartky, 'The Bygone Era of Time Balls', Sky and Telescope (Jan 1987), 32-35