Henry Piddington

For other uses, see Piddington (disambiguation).
A portrait sketch published in 1839 in the India Review

Henry Piddington (1797–1858) was an English scientist and merchant captain in East India and China who coined the name cyclone in 1848 for tropical storms, referring to a storm that blew a freighter in circles in Mauritius in February 1845.

Scientific pursuits

Little is known of his early life but he sailed on ships and rose to command a ship. In 1820 he settled in Calcutta and took an interest in scientific pursuits. He wrote many scientific papers about geology, botany, mineralogy, and meteorology in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. For a while he was a curator of the Museum of Economic Geology. In 1829 he wrote Examination and analysis of some specimens of iron ore from Burdwan and On the fertilising principles of the inundations of the Hugli in the Asiatic Society journal.

In 1832, he compiled a list of the plants of economic importance and from 1835 he wrote on a variety of topics including descriptions of fish, reviews of fossil finds in South America and on geology. He sometimes reviewed and translated content published in other journals.[1]

Law of Storms

In 1833 a cyclone hit Calcutta and Piddington took little interest in it but in 1838 he stumbled on the "Law of Storms" by (then) Lt.-Colonel William Reid and this led him to return to his sailing experience and take an interest in ship logs. He was assisted by Captain Christopher Biden, the Master Attendant at Madras.

He coined the word "cyclone" and wrote a series of works (23 memoirs in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal) on the topic.[2][3] He noticed that the storms had a calm centre and that the winds around them ran anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

Other positions

He also held other positions including as a secretary to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society and President of Marine Courts of Enquiry.[4]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Mitra, Rajendralala. Centenary review of the Asiatic Society of Bengal From 1784 to 1883. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal. pp. 168–171.
  2. ↑ Markham, Clements R (1878). A memoir of the Indian Surveys. (2 ed.). London: W.H. Allen. pp. 36–37.
  3. ↑ Reid, W. (1838). An attempt to develop the Law of Storms by means of facts arranged according to place and time. London: John Weale.
  4. ↑ Sarma, A.K. Sen (1997). "Henry Piddington (1797-1858): a bicentennial tribute". Weather. 52 (6): 187–193. doi:10.1002/j.1477-8696.1997.tb06306.x.
  5. ↑ IPNI.  Pidd.
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