Early China Coast Meteorology: The Role of Hong Kong, 1882-1912 (Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies)

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Early China Coast Meteorology

MacKeown_00_fm_rev.indd 1

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Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series is designed to make widely available important contributions on the local history, culture and society of Hong Kong and the surrounding region. Generous support from the Sir Lindsay and Lady May Ride Memorial Fund makes it possible to publish a series of high-quality works that will be of lasting appeal and value to all, both scholars and informed general readers, who share a deeper interest in and enthusiasm for the area.

___________________ Other titles in RAS Hong Kong Studies Series: Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money. Essays by Marjorie Topley Edited and introduced by Jean DeBernardi The Dragon and the Crown: Hong Kong Memoirs Stanley S.K. Kwan with Nicole Kwan East River Column: Hong Kong Guerillas in the Second World War and After Chan Sui-jeung For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings Janet Lee Scott Hong Kong Internment 1942–1945: Life in the Japanese Civilian Camp at Stanley Geoffrey Charles Emerson Public Success, Private Sorrow: The Life and Times of Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor (1857–1938), China Customs Commissoner and Pioneer Translator Isidore Cyril Cannon Reluctant Heroes: Rickshaw Pullers in Hong Kong and Canton 1874–1954 Fung Chi Ming Resist to the End: Hong Kong, 1941–1945 Charles Barman, edited by Ray Barman The Six-Day War of 1899: Hong Kong in the Age of Imperialism Patrick H. Hase Southern District Officer Reports: Islands and Villages in Rural Hong Kong, 1910–60 Edited by John Strickland Watching Over Hong Kong: Private Policing 1841–1941 Sheilah E. Hamilton


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Early China Coast Meteorology The Role of Hong Kong

P. Kevin MacKeown


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Hong Kong University Press

14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong www.hkupress.org © Hong Kong University Press 2011 ISBN 978-988-8028-85-6 All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound by Paramount Printing Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, China


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Contents

List of Figures

vii

Foreword to the Series

ix

Foreword

xi

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Nineteenth-Century Observatories

xiii xv 1

2. An Observatory for Hong Kong

27

3. A Director for the New Observatory

55

4. Government Astronomer or ‘Merely a Meteorological Observer’

73

5. Universal Dissatisfaction

107

6. Typhoon Studies

133

7. A Jesuit Conspiracy

173

8. A New Age

207

Appendix A A Gazeteer

229

Appendix B Hong Kong Observatory Publications

231

Appendix C Publications of John I. Plummer

235

Appendix D Publications of A. W. Doberck

239

Notes

249

Bibliography

273

Index

279


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List of Figures

Fig. 1: MacGowan’s 1853 booklet at Ningbo. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia.

6

Fig. 2: The typhoon cemetery at Kai Lung Wan around 1900, and the memorial stone as now situated at Wo Hop Sek cemetery. By kind permission of Mr. Ko Tim Keung.

34

Fig. 3: A portrait of the young Doberck painted by his father. By kind permission of Mr. Michael Doberck.

58

Fig. 4: Doberck with the Great Refractor at Markree.

60

Fig. 5: The original Observatory building. Courtesy of the Information Services Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government.

86

Fig. 6: Telegraphic connections to Hong Kong around 1884. After Ahvenainen (1981). Courtesy of Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.

90

Fig. 7: Meteorological stations reporting to Hong Kong Observatory in 1885; B=Breaker Point; C=Chapel Island; F=Fisher Island; G=Gutzlaff; L=Lamocks; M=Middle Dog; N=North Saddle; O=Okseu; Sh=Shaweishan; St=Steep Island; T=Turnabout. After Doberck, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 15 May 1886.

91

Fig. 8: John Isaac Plummer in later life. By kind permission of Richard Bellamy-Brown.


128

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viii

List of Figures

Fig. 9: Typhoon tracks as presented by MacGowan in 1853.

139

Fig. 10: An early typhoon track off Japan as presented by M. v. B. in 1874. 141 Fig. 11: Dechevrens’s trajectory for the storm of 31 July 1879.

143

Fig. 12: Dechevrens’s and Knipping’s (dashed) tracks for a typhoon in August 1880.

143

Fig. 13: A studio portrait of Dr. Doberck in Dayton, Ohio, around 1897. Courtesy of the Librarian, Lick Observatory.

171

Fig. 14: Hong Kong signals code in 1904.

186

Fig. 15: Marryat’s signals code.

187

Fig. 16: Zikawei China Coast Code in 1906.

188

Fig. 17: China Coast code signals displayed on Blackhead’s Hill sometime after January 1908, when the time-ball tower was constructed. Courtesy of the Information Services Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government. 189 Fig. 18: Zikawei weather charts for September 1906.

193

Fig. 19: Plummer’s pamphlet on typhoons.

200

Fig. 20: Frederic George Figg. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Observatory of the HKSAR.

208

Fig. 21: Telegraph lines and cables linking Far East ports around 1912. After Ahvenainen (1981), courtesy of Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki. 213 Fig. 22: A photograph of Doberck in later life. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Observatory of the HKSAR. 226


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All of us these days take for granted the existence of weather forecasts. Nearly all of us read or listen to them — but most of us harbour some sort of feeling such as: “Why can’t they ever get it right?” This book will not answer that question, but it might provide the comfort to know that people have, perhaps unfairly, been asking it in Hong Kong for almost 130 years. MacKeown’s research tracks the early expressions of a need for a Hong Kong Observatory and the long and difficult process whereby it came into existence. Intelligent scientific interest had for long been shown in observatories in China, often encouraged by Jesuits and other foreigners, but even as late as 1870 the emperor was blaming floods and other disasters on his people failing to ‘tremble in fear and reflect on their transgressions’. Besides, most observatories at the time were more concerned with astronomy than trying to predict the weather, something that was to haunt our own observatory in its early days. It is no surprise to find the hand of Sir Robert Hart playing a part in the development of serious study of meteorological trends, encouraging the growing number of Chinese Maritime Customs offices to take an interest and record weather data. But it is Hong Kong’s role that forms the focus of this book. In 1861 Hong Kong’s famous noonday gun, which was in those days fired at 8.00 in the evening, was the only universal check on the time — and it was far from accurate. To know the exact time was not just to enable residents to set their social timetable. Far more important was the role precise time-keeping played in the navigation of ships — something of vital concern to Hong Kong. There were loud and repeated calls for an institution to be established that would issue both accurate time signals and reports of weather conditions. However, it was not until 1877 that the first steps were taken towards the establishment of an observatory. And another five years were to pass before the Hong Kong Observatory came into being. Even then the project was not without controversy, not least in the person of its first director — an interesting character and a challenging one for his government masters to contend with. For one thing,


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x


Dr. Doberck’s priorities were brought into question when he persisted in calling himself the government astronomer. Things reached a turning point when no signal at all was raised for a typhoon that struck the city in October 1889. Then, as now, there was much comment in the press about the Observatory’s failure to do its job. However, in 1889 the critics had more justification than those of today. Matters improved and by 1912, the end of its first stage of development, the Hong Kong Observatory was on track to become the first-rate institution that it is today. This excellently researched book is yet another example of taking a relatively narrow field of interest, and perhaps an obscure one at that, and making a highly readable and fascinating result. MacKeown’s book is a must for anybody who hears that ‘the Number Three has gone up’ and wonders what on earth it means. The Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch and Hong Kong University Press are very proud of what they have achieved so far with the Studies Series. More and more people, both here and abroad, are finding that Hong Kong and its unique history and culture provide a rich and fascinating field of study. An increasing number of schools are including the history of our city and its surroundings in their curricula, for which we should be able to take some credit. We will continue to bring to the public original works that will enhance this area even further. The publications in the Studies Series have been made possible initially by the very generous donation of seeding capital by the Trustees of the Clague Trust Fund, representing the estate of the late Sir Douglas Clague. This donation enabled us to establish a trust fund in the name of Sir Lindsay and Lady Ride, in memory of our first vice president and his wife. The Society itself added to this fund, as have a number of other generous donors. The result is that we now have funding to bring to students of Hong Kong’s history, culture and society a number of books that might otherwise not have seen the light of day. Furthermore, we continue to be delighted with the agreement established with Hong Kong University Press, which sets out the basis on which the Press will partner our efforts.

Robert Nield President Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch


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Foreword

When I joined the then Royal Observatory in 1974, I was given a little book on the history of the Observatory. It led me to believe that the Observatory had its beginning in a recommendation of the Royal Society and that its initial mission was scientific in nature, comprising astronomical (for time keeping), meteorological and geomagnetic observations. It was quite convincing since my job title was ‘Scientific Officer’. But I quickly realized that my job had much to do with the welfare of Hong Kong and its people, and that I could not pretend that I did only scientific work. The Observatory had to respond to requirements of the community and very often to their criticisms. I began to question whether it was right to see the Observatory purely as a scientific institution. In my reading through the years, I repeatedly ran into references to the 1874 typhoon and could not help wondering whether it was the real cause which led to the establishment of the Observatory. Professor MacKeown’s book covers the first thirty years of the Observatory. It enables me to see the Observatory emerging in a situation full of tension and conflicts. Local practical demands for protection from typhoons were set against the scientific expectations of a distant land. Events unfolding separately in Hong Kong and London had to be brought together as if the same purpose was being served. Intricate conflicts were apparent among the various colourful personalities involved in the setting up of the Observatory, in the UK and in the then colony. Indeed, that sense of tension has continued all the way to the present day. The Hong Kong Observatory is still searching for the impossible harmony as real-life demands keep on growing beyond the capability of rigorous science. Professor MacKeown very successfully portrays the circumstances into which Dr. Doberck, the first director, was thrown. The way Dr. Doberck behaved (or misbehaved) during his long stay in Hong Kong can be seen in context. Dr. Doberck’s perception of the Jesuit Fathers and the unfortunate


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xii

Foreword

repercussions are ably discussed, prompting us to ponder whether the Hong Kong Observatory might have played a much more prominent role in the development of meteorology in China or even East Asia had a different man been at the helm in its formative years. The arrow of time points only one way; it is impossible to go back. But lessons should be learnt for future benefit. To be useful to the world, the Observatory must reach out to and cooperate with partners and stakeholders, locally and internationally. This is what it has been doing in recent decades. Professor MacKeown taught me physics at the University of Hong Kong. In this book, he teaches me history and what one should do to run a scientific organization to serve people well. I am very privileged to be his student. In going through this volume, it is obvious that an enormous amount of energy has gone into the collation and analysis of vast amounts of information, which leads to the fine story now in front of us. The Hong Kong community, particularly colleagues at the Observatory, owes Professor MacKeown a big round of applause for the great effort he has expended to enable us to appreciate an often overlooked but nevertheless important aspect of the history of Hong Kong. I congratulate him on a job well done.

Lam Chiu Ying, C Met, HonMemRMetS, HonFCIWEM, SBS Director of the Hong Kong Observatory (2003–2009)


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Preface

By the middle of the nineteenth century meteorology had become a frontier science, but, unlike most frontier sciences, a most valuable one in practical terms. It was a science that should easily have translated to East Asia, where its benefits were transparently obvious. The Japanese, when they set about it, rapidly adapted to the paradigm; the Chinese, fearful of colonial encroachment, were decidedly cool on the subject. What is surprising is how sluggish the development of the subject in the colonial environments was. What were the reasons for this? The present work grew out of an effort to document the history of the physical sciences in Hong Kong. This turned out to be too daunting a task, but from it grew an acquaintance with the unheralded founding director of the Hong Kong Observatory, Dr. William Doberck, a subject who provides a central focus for an account which can make a small contribution to answering this question. I also try to give a more general description of meteorology in the region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, something that has not received much attention from historians to date. Incidental to the whole story is an account of colonial government and society in Hong Kong from a point of view which is complimentary to the more usual politically oriented studies. But the work is more a portrait of events than a researched thesis. No effort has been made to consult Japanese sources, or to track down records from the Manila (largely lost) or Zikawei observatories, and even the records from the Hong Kong Observatory, if we exclude the Government Gazette, are by no means complete. So reliance has often had to be placed on secondary sources, mostly Colonial Office files and contemporary newspaper reports. Not all of the material here is of wide provenance, and I thought it wise to add information to augment some of these sources. My preference for doing so would be signalled footnotes on the page — footnotes being often of greater interest than the text. I’m conscious, however, that many readers find such footnotes distracting so have relegated all such material to the end of the book.


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xiv

Preface

Minutes from the Colonial Office are from files CO129/297 (1882) through CO129/442 (1917). Materials from the Hong Kong Public Records Office are in files HKRS356 and HKRS842. Different spellings in early documents, Hongkong, Hong-Kong, Kaulung etc. are all standardized throughout to ‘Hong Kong’, etc. A bibliography lists all books cited, as well as journal articles that are referred to in the text more than once, and details of other publications are found in the notes where they are mentioned. In the last days of manuscript preparation I became aware of an unfinished draft of a book, An Introduction to Typhoons, that a late director of the Hong Kong Observatory, Gordon J. Bell, planned to produce, and which is housed in the Observatory library. Some relevant historical material, as well as some material, earlier familiarity with which would have saved me considerable effort, is to be found there. There is a perennial problem of how names of places are to be treated, the variability over time being especially acute in that part of the world. Some accommodation must be found for the form as written at the time and for contemporary versions. Common geographical names, such as Peking, Canton, Hong Kong and Macao which have been anglicized in the same way as have Lisbon, Rome, Dublin and Copenhagen are retained in their familiar English form. More difficult to deal with are the names of other places, especially in China, where forms of a more transitory or corrupted nature were in common use. To make a blanket replacement of Chinese place names by their current Hanyu Pinyin forms, e.g. Yantai for Chefoo, or Nanpengdao for Lamocks, would make for a very perplexed reading of the historical material. For the sake of cross referencing and readability, names are given as in the context where they arise, and the accepted contemporary versions are given in a Gazetteer in an Appendix — in Pinyin transliteration in the case of places in China. In the same interest of readability, text in other than roman script is relegated to the endnotes. The Jesuit observatory at Xujiahui is referred to throughout, except in quotations, as Zikawei, in keeping with the priests’ usage.


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Acknowledgements

Grateful thanks are due to the ever helpful staff at the Hong Kong Public Records Office, and at the Special Collections Section of the Hong Kong University Library. Likewise thanks are extended to the directors of the Hong Kong Observatory, C. Y. Lam and Dr. B. Y. Lee, and to their staff, notably Leung Wing Mo and Dr. Lee Tsz Cheung, for generous assistance, and to Michael Doberck (Copenhagen) for helpful information. A parvenu in the field of colonial history, I am greatly indebted to many more erudite colleagues in Hong Kong for illumination, translation and direction to sources, especially to Professor K. L. MacPherson, Professor R. D. Hill, the late Professor A. E. Sweeting, Duncan B. Hunter, Alan Chu, Rodney Griffith, Judy Chow Fung Kiu and Professor Qin Kecheng (Peking University). Among many helpful informants over the years, I would like to thank the late Dr. Patrick O’Neill (Dublin), the late Kenneth J. Goward FRAS, Dorothy Schaumberg and Cheryl Dandridge (Lick Observatory Archives), Dr. Wolfgang Steinicke, John Butler (Armagh Observatory), Nicholas Whyte (Belfast), Peter D. Hingley (Librarian, Royal Astronomical Society), Ian Elliott and Professor Evert Meurs (Dunsink Observatory), Margaret N. Burri, (Milton S. Eisenhower Library The Johns Hopkins University), John C. McConnell FRAS, Frank Concannon, Dr. Ejvind Slottved (University of Copenhagen), J. Malcolm Walker (Royal Meteorological Society), James Appleton, Charles Mooney (Manila), Hilmar Duerbeck, Jeremy Moore, Robert Bikers, Joan Self (UK Meteorological Office), John P. C. Moffett (East Asian History of Science Library, Cambridge), and special thanks are due to Graham Bartlett (National Meteorological Office Library). Permission to reproduce diagrams and photos is gratefully acknowledged in the captions; an additional word of particular thanks is due Richard BellamyBrown, Michael Doberck and Ko Tim Keung. A final word of thanks to the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch, for the encouragement of publication, and to Ms. Dawn Lau of Hong Kong University Press for shepherding the manuscript to publication.


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xvi

Acknowledgements

To all mentioned I am very grateful, but, neophyte that I am in historical research, blemishes, errors and even howlers likely remain, for which, it goes without saying, I alone am responsible. P. Kevin MacKeown Hong Kong


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1 Nineteenth-Century Observatories Meteorology will not be in working order for two years more: but ‘Hart’ is long, if time is fleeting. Robert Hart, December 18731

Introduction The scientific approach to the physical world which blossomed in Europe from the time of Newton and his contemporaries onwards only slowly diffused to more distant regions, and that encroachment was largely under the cloak of European colonial expansion. The extension of the community of science can hardly be described as a missionary undertaking. The propagation of the ways of thinking of scientists did not preoccupy them in the way that the saving of souls moved religiously minded individuals. Of course, we are not talking of mutually exclusive classes. The role of science was pressed into service in the cause of evangelization on many fronts. Ironically, the successes of these endeavours, as we will see, were particularly favourable to the propagation of scientific thinking, more so than to the conversion of the heathen. The ground for foreign encroachment on traditional patterns of thought was fertile in some places more than others. The bulk of Asia — India, China, Japan — was heir to rich educational traditions that could easily sympathize with the new ways of thinking. We are concerned in this volume with a part of the world, the South China Sea and its littoral, and the subject of meteorology, a subject paradigmatic of the scientific approach to nature, emphasizing systematic observation and rigorous analysis in the solution of problems.

MacKeown_01_ch01.indd 1

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Meteorology as a subject was of as much interest 150 years ago as it is today, in the early twenty-first century. The scenario to which it relates, of course, has changed immeasurably over the intervening years, but the urgency of its practice was no less attended to then than it is these days. However, the perceived pedestrian nature of its study seems to have eclipsed its role in most chronicles of the times. The story of the military and political endeavours in the advancement of imperial designs by Europeans in other parts of the world in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries has had many tellings. So also have there been many reports on the lives and adventures of the individuals who took part. Botanical and zoological enquiries among colonial servants, as well as casual travellers, have had wide reporting, but it is only recently that medicine, and to a much lesser extent the physical sciences and engineering, have drawn some attention.2 We are concerned with a factual account of the small, specialized subject of meteorology and especially how it was practised on the ‘China Coast’. Astronomy, and geomagnetism, bedmates of the subject in the early scientific age, will naturally also attract some attention. Although it is not our primary purpose, the story related also throws light on the strengths, foibles and prejudices of colonial society, as well as its attitudes to and interactions, in many cases minimal, with the native populations. There is much more to the story of meteorology in the Orient than an account of the role of the Hong Kong Observatory and we will make some attempt to cover these other aspects, but our focus will be on the evolution of the Observatory in Hong Kong and its relations with other Asian observatories. For good or bad, the history of the first thirty years of that observatory is in great part a chronicle of the career of Dr. William Doberck, the Observatory’s founding director and the institution’s feisty leader for twenty-four of those thirty years. His near quarter-century stay there and the shadow he cast for a further six years in the person of his close colleague and successor, Frederic George Figg, who retired in 1912, form a definitive timeframe for the study in hand. Doberck’s fame as an astronomer is also an excuse to treat, briefly, the early history of astronomy in Hong Kong. Its later developments are described elsewhere.3 To some, the very identification of meteorology in the East with its manifestations in Hong Kong will appear offensive. Compared to the contributions made by the observatories in China, Japan and the Philippines, Hong Kong will often appear, at least in the sense of resources, to have been a minor, but also a fractious player in the meteorology of the region in those times. We choose 1912 as the year at which to take stock of the development of observatories in East Asia, largely because it marks a watershed in the history of the Observatory in Hong Kong. The thirtieth year of its existence was the year in which the last of the cohort of early officers retired, the time when any pretence at playing a role in astronomy was discarded and a management more


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Nineteenth-Century Observatories

3

attuned to the modern demands of meteorology took charge. It was also the year in which, in a formal sense, it turned over a new leaf when ‘Royal’ was added to its title.4 The same year saw the new Republican government in China introducing not one but two meteorological institutes, one associated with the ministry of agriculture and the other with the ministry of education. But before getting to the core of the story it is informative to look briefly at the geopolitical context in which the Hong Kong Observatory originated and the history of other colonial observatories predating its founding.

Early Systematic Observations The weather in all cultures has always been a matter of comment and concern and accounts of it have survived in many places, not least in the exhaustive records of natural phenomena to be found in Chinese documents, official and private. The earliest quantitative measurements made were of rainfall in China and Korea.5 Descriptions relevant to our story were also given by early Portuguese explorers at Macao and Canton, and by Dutch traders in Japan. Such records are valuable for studies of climatology and how the climate may have varied over time but, being largely non-quantitative, they have little to contribute to a history of meteorology as such. Before a review of systematic studies of the subject and a description of the main sources of early meteorological work in East Asia — the various observatories established there from the mid-nineteenth century onwards — we will record a few isolated instances of systematic recordings made by individuals, some dating as far back as the seventeenth century. There is the example of an Irish sojourner at Xiamen, by the name of James Cunningham, who in 1699 published an account of measurements he made there on the pressure, the wind direction and the state of the weather from October 1698 to the following January.6 Mr. Cunningham, later a fellow of the Royal Society, was for a time a physician to the English traders on Zhoushan (Chusan) Island, nine kilometres off the coast in Hangzhou Bay. Another notable example of early meteorological monitoring comes from Sweden. From the 1730s the Swedish Academy of Sciences had an arrangement with the Swedish East India Company (a rather enlightened body of men) to carry scientists on board their China-bound ships.7 At least one meteorological record from this enterprise survives: a near complete tabulation by an anonymous visitor of the rainfall at Macao from early March to 12 September 1780.8 Another interesting case is that of a private observatory that was established at Batavia, in the Dutch East Indies, as early as 1765. Its owner was the self-taught German-Dutch Reverend Johan Maurits Mohr, whose wife fell into a large inheritance. This enabled him to build and equip his own private observatory from where he made


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various meteorological and astronomical observations, including two Transits of Venus. A nucleus of amateur scientists built up around his observatory, but by 1790 activity had declined, not to recover again for almost a century.9

China: The Early Days Records of the weather, as is the case with all observations of nature, have a long history in China. However, in her history of the Hong Kong Observatory, Ho Pui-yin remarks on the failure to keep continuous records of meteorological phenomena, the observers in general only recording exceptional events, and she describes records of many such events, especially typhoons, in the weather in Southern China from pre-Observatory days.10 So, unlike astronomy, meteorology in China in the pre-scientific age never reached any level of sophistication. In the words of China’s most distinguished meteorological son, Zhu Kezhen,11 it never advanced beyond the stage of prognostication by proverbs, of which many exist. Typical is: If on the first come wind and rain, ’Twill bring us pestilence and pain; If at Ch’ing Ming a south wind come, It means a plenteous harvest-home.12

Nevertheless, although extensive records exist which would be valuable to students of climate for inferring climate and climate change in China, it would be stretching a point to suggest they played any determining role in the development of modern meteorology. From the earliest days of their participation in the working of the Peking Observatory, and the time of Ferdinand Verbiest in the mid-seventeenth century, the Jesuit priests attached to that Observatory included meteorological monitoring among the curriculum of new knowledge they introduced into the Celestial Kingdom. We have some records of the first half of the eighteenth century from the French Jesuits there in the form of data they forwarded to the French Academy in Paris. Extensive data on temperature and wind direction, measured at 06:30 and 15:30 daily from July 1743 until March 1746 at the Observatory, communicated by a Fr. Antoine Gaubil, have been reported.13 The French had a reputation for rigour in their instrumentation — a resolution in their temperature measurements of 0.31°C at that time has been deduced14 — and the systematic manner in which the data were accumulated must lend much confidence in their reliability. These data are particularly interesting for establishing, in the summer of 1743, a recorded all time high of 44.4°C in the


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capital, and a heat wave in North China in which Fr. Gaubil reports 11 400 deaths around the capital; this heat wave is amply confirmed by many qualitative reports of the time in official documents and provincial chronicles. It has been concluded that it was the highest temperature encountered at Peking in the last seven hundred years. But there is more to meteorology than temperature records. Other observations on the pressure, the wind direction and the state of the weather, made twice daily at Peking from 1757 to 1762 were reported by another Jesuit father, Jean-Joseph Amiot.15

An Early Publication in Chinese There are different readings of the confrontation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries between Western science as prosecuted by the colonial powers and indigenous populations in the territories they bestrode, either as colonial mandarins, philanthropists or missionaries. The case of meteorology might seem to be fairly simple compared, say, with the complexity of the encounter of Western medicine with native populations. Meteorology would largely be in the service of the foreigners, the benefit to the locals only incidental to this role. Yet the earliest systematic introduction of the subject to the China Coast, the publication of a book in Chinese on the subject in the 1850s by a foreign missionary, was exclusively directed at native readership. The subsequent establishment by the Jesuits of major meteorological observatories in China and the Philippines also cannot be easily read as the deliberate prosecution of colonial-oriented goals, even if they would eventually be coopted into that exercise. The book in question was published in 1853 by the American missionary doctor Daniel Jerome MacGowan at Ningbo.16 MacGowan himself did not claim to make any meteorological measurements, but he was an active participant in a programme of bringing Western scientific thought to the attention of educated Chinese, with the twin aims of rejuvenating their society and spreading the Christian message.17 Two years earlier at Ningbo he had published Bo Wu Tong Shu or the Philosophical Almanac, a text introducing electricity to local readers in the context of explaining the electric telegraph. It contained illustrations featuring such items as Leyden jars and Toepler-Holtz machines, and proposed a never-to-be-adopted code of eighteen Chinese symbols to be used on the telegraph keyboard. That book was eventually translated into Japanese and its terminology played a role in decisions made there between Dutch-based and Chinese-based nomenclature in physics. The book by MacGowan of interest to us is titled Hang hai jin zhen (the Navigator’s Golden Needle, see Fig. 1) and separately in English, The Law of Storms in Chinese. It consists of thirty-seven


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pages and is a singular publication on meteorology at the time. It contains a brief introduction in English, in which the author tells us that the chapter on typhoons in the South China Sea in Col. Reid’s work forms the basis for his publication, but that works by Redfield and Piddington were also consulted.18 He acknowledges financial assistance from J. C. Bowring at Hong Kong in publishing his pamphlet. He continues: ‘So much of the science of meteorology as applies to the subject has been introduced, with some general principles of navigation as practiced in the West; the whole being interspersed with remarks on natural and revealed religion’. He castigated the Chinese for their slowness to appreciate new discoveries, but hoped that his pamphlet would help Chinese navigators to escape the fury of the storms and lead them to ‘make observations calculated to perfect our acquaintance with the tracks of revolving storms, in regions rarely visited by foreign ships’. He wrote further: they need instruction in those sciences which are the source of so much of the wealth and power of our native lands, and without which the resources of the empire can never be fully developed. In supplying them with works of a scientific character, we shall not only promote their material interests, but by employing these as media for conveying religious truth, we shall contribute largely to their intellectual and moral regeneration.

Apart from the text it contains five leaves of diagrams and a large folding sheet showing the course of typhoons in the China Sea.

Fig. 1. MacGowan’s 1853 booklet at Ningbo. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia.


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MacGowan translated the booklet into Chinese, he said, with supplements of his own ideas, so that mariners would know how to avoid hurricanes and master the principles of navigation. In this he is being modest. The work is not at all a literal translation of Reid’s chapter. Not only does he add a discussion of basic meteorological principles like atmospheric pressure and the role of the earth’s rotation in wind patterns, and adapt the material to the region of the South China Sea, but his discussions of phenomena are much more user-friendly than the sometimes rambling account in Reid. Although his main intention was to advise sailors on the avoidance of harm when encountering a typhoon, in a final chapter he introduces the principles and methods of navigation, especially the determination of position. Explaining the arbitrariness in assigning a zero of longitude, he chose the capital, Peking, as his zero reference in the one labelled chart he presented.19 He also explains the origins of the tides, contrasting the moon/sun role in the phenomenon with the role of a large fish in a hole in the sea believed by some, he said, to be the explanation. He admitted to ignorance of the names of some islands along the coast and of conditions in the seas north of Taiwan, and invited his Chinese sailor readers to help him. They should fill in the names of the unknown islands and if they encountered typhoons they should record the time, location and the change of the direction of the wind in a timely and continuous fashion, and send their records to the consuls of Western countries. When he had the results he promised he would write another book. He included a chart of typical typhoon tracks in the region, but in the absence of any land-based observatories in that part of the world at the time all such compilations were based on the reports in ships’ logs, and it is not too surprising that the chart shows some deficiencies when compared with later summaries. We will return to this issue in chapter 6. The theological interventions threatened in the introduction are tolerably few. In defence of the scientific method he wrote how as a king administers his kingdom according to laws, so God administers the universe according to laws, too, and that the wind was to be understood as one of God’s laws — a contrast he wished to make against prevailing yin-yang theories. More evangelical was his advice on personal behaviour on encountering a storm, and being in a position where the ship is nearly destroyed. The mariner should keep a cool head, not panic nor lose his wits and abandon steering. He should not prostrate himself before idols on board and so lose his own judgment. Instead, he should worship with his heart the only true God in heaven, and his son Jesus Christ. Only this God was effective. How could idols made from wood and earth save him? He closed his pamphlet on a moralizing tone, explaining how he had come from afar, not in search of profit or rank but to awaken common people to the truth, and how proper conduct in society, not focussing on profit and greed, was ultimately of greater importance than the avoidance of typhoons. Although


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of considerable interest to us here, it is questionable whether MacGowan’s book had any significant influence in the country at the time. Did any sailors take up his advice to abandon idols, or his request to forward information to the foreign consuls? It seems unlikely; no second book emerged and no later writers on meteorology in China makes any mention of the one he did write. As we have seen, the book was an early indicator of efforts of foreigners and Chinese together to bring modern developments in mathematics and the sciences to the attention of the citizens of the Empire, but it was to be the only one centred on meteorology.20 We will encounter no later instances where colonial officials or missionary priests attempted to assimilate native potential in the advancement of the subject, but more usually an opinion on their part dismissive of the ability of local employees for such work.

China: Systematic Recording Pre-1860 The earlier meteorological activity of the Jesuits in the capital had largely been forgotten by the time, more than a hundred years later in 1863, when an attempt was made to revive scientific meteorology there by Robert Hart, inspectorgeneral of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. But before we embark on that episode we must note some organized efforts to publish meteorological data for the country. The Canton Register was inaugurated as an Englishlanguage publication in November 1827 and from issue No. 36 in October 1838 it began to carry regularly daily temperature, pressure and wind measurements for that city, although it does not state where or by whom they were made. The temperature was quoted to the nearest Fahrenheit degree and the pressure to 1/20th of an inch of mercury. A new journal in the city, the Chinese Repository, in its first volume in 1833 carried an article on the climate, reproduced some of the data for 1831 from the Canton Register, but also carried records of temperature and pressure at Macao from the ‘private diary of Mr. Blettermann’ and rainfall data at Macao for sixteen years courtesy of a Mr. Beale.21 In 1835 Bemerkungen über die klimatischen Verhältnisse des südlichen China by the pioneering German plant physiologist Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen was published in Europe.22 On a round-the-world expedition, 1830–32, he monitored meteorological conditions four times daily. On the basis of a fourmonth sojourn at Macao and Canton in the autumn of 1831, he presumed to write an account of the climate of South China. He made observations of the temperature for a couple of days in August at Northwest Lantau23 — where he also collected some botanical specimens — before moving on to Macao. There, for a couple of days he recorded temperature and pressure, followed by two weeks at Canton where he recorded thermometer and psychrometer (relative


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humidity) data. Although his report may contain the first meteorological data from what would become the territory of Hong Kong, his work is less useful for his own observations than for the compilation of earlier data from Canton and Macao that he presented. Some of it dates back to 1785, the temperature and the winds throughout that year at Canton recorded by C.-L.-J. de Guignes, the French consul in the city at the time.24 Meyen, in furtherance of his primary interest, botany, took the opportunity of visiting two men in Macao who cultivated large and mature gardens and found some interesting plant specimens. But the two men, the same two responsible for the data published at Canton noted above, were the Dutch general-consul there, Mr. Blettermann and an English merchant, Thomas Beale, who both dabbled in meteorology and had accumulated some records on rainfall and temperature.25 From Blettermann he collected the extensive data on rainfall he had recorded at Macao from 1812 to 1831 (excluding two years). Meyen also presents four years (1827–30) of temperature data (and one year of pressure data) at Macao recorded by Beale, and temperature data at Canton for 1829–31 as reported in the Canton Register of the time. The climate of Canton and Macao was also considered by another traveller at this time.26 He gave the mean monthly temperature and pressure during 1831 at Canton, from the Canton Register, and at Macao from a ‘private diary’ of Mr. Blettermann. Average monthly rainfall over a period of sixteen years attributed to Mr. Beale was also presented.

The Role of Observatories As we have noted, established observatories would be the main source of information on meteorology. Apart from evolving observatories in Japan, which in the years of interest to us, in their infancy, made but a small contribution to China Coast meteorology, all such institutions were products of the Western colonial expansion in that part of the world. As such they must be viewed in the context of the establishment of observatories overseas by the colonial powers generally, with the British dictating the paradigm for this study. There were, however, contributions by the French, the Spanish, the Russians and the Dutch, and also a tentative role by the quasi-autonomous Imperial Chinese Maritime Custom Service authorities. The role of observatories in the colonial expansion of Western powers into Asia is not a simple linear story. All the major colonial powers devoted effort to some aspects of the physical sciences usually associated with an observatory and established suitable institutions in that part of the world. In the case of Hong Kong a direct role in colonial expansion is clear. In several other cases it was more the fact that observatories, and observers, were co-opted into the imperial enterprise. However, the aspects emphasized could


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vary greatly, and the forces directing them were equally diverse. Astronomy, meteorology, seismology and geomagnetic phenomena all featured, with greater or lesser emphasis, in the developments. Astronomy was, of course, the doyen among these subjects, but its occurrence was more often the default condition of the practical requirements of providing a time service rather than the academic pastime its practitioners pursued in other parts and, indeed, would have liked to pursue in the Orient. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Hong Kong, where, as we will see, the frustrated ‘Government Astronomer’ fought a gallant, but unavailing, fight in defence of his passion for the subject. Nor can anywhere else in the region be said to have fared any better in this respect. The provision of a time service was a very important duty in the early days of these observatories, especially at ports with major shipping traffic such as Shanghai and Hong Kong. Indeed it was the very raison d’être for the founding of the latter observatory. The demands for such a service can be seen from the total numbers of vessels entering and leaving Hong Kong: in 1885, 27 100 (344 sailing), in 1900, 82 500 (78 sailing) and in 1912, 489 000 (1 sailing), with respective tonnages of 5.66 million, 18.45 million and 36.74 million. But from the intellectual point of view there was nothing new to be learned from this pursuit and, as it happened, the growth of telegraphy meant that the importance of locally establishing the time steadily declined. Seismology, in general, had a more particular local interest but, more relevantly, the subject was far from being easily understood and, at the same time, was of little practical application. Only true devotees were involved. The most intriguing subject in our purview of subjects studied in the observatories is terrestrial magnetism. The magnetic compass was an essential of navigation, both by sea and surface, and an accurate map of the geomagnetic field was a prime necessity, but the study of magnetism went far beyond such a pedestrian requirement. The analogue, in the nineteenth century, of a modern hightechnology laboratory was a geomagnetic observatory. No expense was spared in furnishing such laboratories world-wide with the most sensitive of instruments, monitoring the time variability of the components of the earth’s magnetic field. Once set up, such a laboratory was relatively easy to maintain, but did require a dedicated observer to supervise the observations. It must often have seemed a thankless task, but they contributed to the very foundations of the subject of geophysics, one might almost say, when correlations with solar conditions are acknowledged, cosmic physics. Meteorology, however, was the paramount subject justifying the existence of these observatories. Not only did the expansion in sea and, later, air travel mean that it came to play an increasingly important role, but there was much that was new to be learned. This was especially the case with regard to storms


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in the Pacific and the China Sea, which were such a source of destruction to life and property both on land and on sea. It is recorded that on 17 July 1281 a fleet of 3500 ships assembled by the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan for an invasion of Japan was totally destroyed by a typhoon off the coast of Kyushu, and it was reported that only three of the 100,000 men aboard made it back to China. Storms in Europe, the Indian Ocean and the Antilles had been extensively studied by the middle of the nineteenth century and it remained to establish their nature and properties in the Far East. The historical importance of all the observatories in that part of the world lies almost entirely in the advances achieved by their pioneering staff in understanding such meteorological phenomena, and in weather forecasting.

The Earliest European Institutions The Russian Observatory at Peking The earliest of the European-run meteorological services in Asia was a small unit attached to the Russian Orthodox Mission in Peking from 1841. In 1849 this was expanded to a magnetic cum meteorological observatory which was constructed on the grounds of the Embassy, and it recorded data sporadically until 1863.27 In 1867 the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg took over the operation and dispatched Dr. Hermann Fritsche as director of the Peking Observatory. For the next sixteen years Fritsche coordinated a systematic programme of magnetic and meteorological observations, some of them at stations away from Peking. In 1877, at Shanghai, he published The Climate of Eastern Asia, the first substantial work (230 pages) on meteorology in that part of the world. It is perhaps a surprise to find Fritsche decrying the adoption of the metric system by European meteorologists (which, perforce, he had to use himself) since he was of the opinion that the French system differed more from the so-called natural measure than the English, and only ‘France with its small territory’ would be at a disadvantage if English standards were used.28 Much of his book is devoted to tables of temperature, pressure and cloud cover (minima, maxima and means), mostly at North Asian locations but including Shanghai, Fuzhou, Keelung, Canton, Hong Kong and Bangkok. We shall have cause to refer to it from time to time later.


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The Imperial Chinese Customs: Robert Hart An important figure in early meteorology in China is Robert Hart, the inspectorgeneral of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs. The Chinese Maritime Customs, later when amalgamated with the Qing office of foreign affairs (the Tsungli Yamen), the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs, was originally set up in 1854 as a foreign-operated institution by the Shanghai municipal authorities and the foreign consuls in the city. Although later formally part of the Qing administration, the British always retained a dominant position in the unit. Hart, an Irishman, was its long-serving second head (1863–1910). In the event, his efforts in meteorology, always but a very small part of his portfolio, were of much value, although much less successful than he had hoped for. Hart had already coordinated the customs medical officers at stations in the treaty ports into a data-gathering body for providing half-yearly reports, which went on to become a very successful operation.29 Encouraged by this, and mindful that climatic factors was one of the categories encompassed in that work, in November 1869 he devised a similar plan to encompass meteorology in the Empire.30 He wrote to the commissioners at fourteen Customs stations informing them that he intended a meteorological station to be associated with each Customs office. They would be equipped with the necessary apparatus, and ‘two or three simple books on Meteorology etc’. He originally saw the collection of data would also be done by lighthouse keepers at the many new lighthouses established along the coast. They would report, at least initially, to a meteorological department under the statistical secretary and the marine secretary, resident at Shanghai, although he hoped that ‘in a few years these meteorological stations will … have at their head an observatory to be established in connection with the Peking college [Tongwen Guan]’. The Tongwen Guan, originally founded in 1862 as a college for interpreters, was later expanded and became the premier venue for the expansion in the teaching of mathematics and the physical sciences in the country. It was under the administration of the Customs Service. It was not until four years later that Hart became really enthusiastic about encompassing meteorology in the Custom Service’s activities, observing that: ‘the Medical Reports are a success … the meteorological observations and exchange of weather-news will, in time, fill up the gap and help to give the West sets of facts concerning the East that must prove most useful to scientific men’,31 and ‘if comparative meteorology is to accomplish anything anywhere anyday, I fancy our Stations will be as near the front as any others. I seem to have kept it back until just the right moment’.32 He would be sorely disappointed. He took steps to equip these stations. In March 1873 he asked J. D. Campbell, his agent in London, to consult with the astronomer royal on the required instrumentation, of which twenty sets would be purchased. Twelve sets were to


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be sent, he hoped by August of that year, to Shanghai, and eight to the Customs agent in Hong Kong,33 but later, on 29 May, he speaks only of twelve sets to be sent to the ‘cosmopolitan stations’.34 It is almost certain that his original idea to have sets of instruments sent to Hong Kong was not followed up, for reasons we cannot discern. The unknown context, however, may explain a certain coolness detectable in his attitude later to the observatory established there; he appears to have had no input in the setting up of the observatory. He also wished his proposal to be made widely known among scientific circles at home, although he was not convincingly clear as to what would be achieved, at one time writing: ‘find out if there is any special line in which such stations can be made useful — either to established receptacles of knowledge, or to isolated experimentalists, specialists, etc.’ and at another: ‘here … there is a movement under way to assist science and give shipping the benefit of the information supplied by daily observations’.35 For a man educated in the liberal arts (Greek, Latin, English literature, modern languages, etc.) at Queen’s University, Belfast, Hart always showed a shrewd scientific sense, here wanting to know: ‘which will be the best hours to take [the observations] and what will be the very smallest number to be taken daily to be compatible with utility’. By May of that year he had drawn up an ambitious list of sites along the Asian coast accessible by telegraph where he hoped to have meteorological stations established — Posiet (Vladivostock), Yokohama, Nagasaki, Newchwang, Hankow, Lamock Islands (near Shantou), Hong Kong, Manila, Saigon, Bangkok, Singapore and Batavia, and had written to the relevant authorities in this context. Already, he reported, the ‘Chinese Customs are going to send weather news by telegraph every morning from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Amoy and Nagasaki’.36 Some of the instruments arrived at Shanghai by early December, ‘two whole and four smashed barometers’, but these broken instruments were not his only difficulty. Others were to arise on two fronts, with the Chinese authorities — perhaps not unanticipated — but also apparently, elsewhere. In his letter to Campbell, on 18 October 1873, he writes: ‘The [meteorological] work can be put off for another year: it will be better to begin well than to begin badly. You may be on the lookout for a meteorologist: but do not engage one until you have my positive orders to do so. I do not quite like the intensity of “Brother J’s” interest: to me it looks like a desire to take the lead out of our hands, and I shall not authorize you to visit W. for the present’.37 A month later he is writing: ‘we’ll have to go at Meteorology very gradually’38 and in December: ‘Meteorology will not be in working order for two years more: but “Hart” is long, if time is fleeting’. If we take the identification by the editors of the letters, of ‘Brother J’ with John Bull, i.e. England, and ‘W’ with Whitehall, it seems that the Colonial Office, with which Hart had no official relations, was taking an interest in the


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matter — here, perhaps, lies another possible explanation for the total absence of any reference to Hart in the setting up of the Hong Kong Observatory. An antagonism in this direction is also suggested by Hart’s unfavourable opinion of a Mr. Wodehouse who applied for a meteorological position, ostensibly because he was an amateur, but, as the editors of his letter suggest, the fact that Wodehouse was ‘a man of very high standing in the Colonial Service’ did not endear him to the inspector general.39 Campbell informed Hart of the high opinion of Mr. Blanford, the meteorological reporter for Bengal, of his scheme: ‘but thinks it too “ambitious” and fears it will fail unless you can get a man, who thoroughly understands such work, to carry it out’.40 He finally decided that the data from the chain of coastal stations would be channelled to the head station in Peking and the programme directed by an astronomer stationed at the Tongwen Guan. A very suitable candidate for the astronomer’s post was found, one Ralph Copeland, and in a letter to Campbell of 30 September 1874, he writes: ‘Herewith authority to appoint Copeland … the “Chair” means schoolmaster’s work, … life in China has many drawbacks: on the other hand it is possible that if he “takes well”, he may make a career, for the Chinese have an immense reverence for Astronomy’.41 Mr. Copeland had some short-term plans, including a visit to Mauritius for observing the transit of Venus in late 1874, but such a delay was deemed acceptable and, for Copeland, turned out to be fortunate, for when the time came around that he was free to go to China the whole scheme had fallen through. The Chinese authorities appear to have had a change of heart, probably a reluctance to see further encroachment by foreigners in its territory in a sensitive field, though not so explained by Hart when he wrote to Campbell in January 1876 that: ‘the Yamen has backed out of its desire to have a Professor of Astronomy and says we must wait. I tell them they have lost such a chance as they’ll never have again. They reply. “There’s corn in Egypt”.’42 No more is heard of his proposal. Copeland went on to a distinguished career: professor of astronomy at Edinburgh and eventually astronomer royal for Scotland. As will be seen later, after 1882 the Jesuit observatory at Zikawei took over the coordination of data monitored by Customs officers along the coast, while the founding director of the Hong Kong Observatory was to come across the meteorological instruments, still stored unboxed, in the Custom Houses at Shanghai and Xiamen in the autumn of 1883 to begin a new phase in the story.43 The attitude of reluctance of the Chinese Imperial government in respect of making use of foreign expertise contrasts with that of contemporary Meiji Japan, where foreigners were conscripted, at very attractive rates of pay, but for just such duration as enabled their expertise to be transferred to local students. A notable example was the unemployed ex-master of the Hong Kong Mint, Thomas William Kinder, whose salary as director of the Osaka Mint in 1870


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was 50% more than that of the Japanese prime minister. There was also in China a failure to abjure traditional thinking. What one writer has described as ‘moral meteorology’ still held a place in Imperial decrees, where the visitations of unwelcome climatic conditions was attributed to objectionable behaviour by the local population or their officials.44 As late as 1870 the emperor in a decree blamed floods, droughts and deficient harvests on unhappiness in heaven with officials, great and small, in this echoing the earlier ‘moral meteorological analysis’ of the Yongzheng Emperor: We are of the opinion that although icy hail commonly occurs in the northern regions, yet the disasters suffered by the villages of Xuanhua seem uniquely severe, and rarely seen in recent times. It is evident that Heaven Above has been sending signs again and again to warn Xuanhua. If by any chance the local officials or common peoples regard these as accidents due to natural causation then they are inferior people who do not know how to tremble in fear and reflect on their transgressions.45

In summary, it may be said that Hart overreached himself in his enthusiasm for meteorology, but his efforts were not totally in vain. Although lacking any formal integrating structure, meteorological recordings at the Customs stations were begun. Fritsche presents sporadic data on temperature and pressure, starting in 1871 from Imperial Maritime Customs stations at Chefoo, Newchang, Taku and Kelung. However, he considered the observations not of very great use, ‘being very incomplete, and obtained with instruments whose corrections are not known’.46 Some further information on observations made at the treaty ports is available in a recent publication.47 When Doberck arrived on the scene at Hong Kong some use could be made of the archived instruments, and data from the Customs stations were later to play an important role in the development of synoptic meteorology in the region. However, the prosecution of meteorology in a professional manner in China would have to wait a few years more until the establishment of the Zikawei Observatory at Shanghai by the Jesuits in 1873.

The Established Observatories In the Europe of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the attraction of distant parts for students of the botanical and zoological sciences was obvious, as much from the point of view of gainful pursuit as the pursuit of pure science itself. And, indeed, such studies were enthusiastically pursued in the newly acquired colonies in both contexts. The case of the physical sciences was not so clear cut. By and large, exotic locations did not offer an advantage in studying them and their pursuit ‘overseas’ hinged very much on their utilitarian value. This aspect


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of the history of science has been vigorously promoted by commentators on ‘colonial science’ in recent times, and, indeed, the argument may be valid, but it certainly needs more investigation than it has received heretofore.48 Before looking into the observatories that had an important impact on the one that was to develop in Hong Kong, it is interesting to look briefly at some other related institutions. The nineteenth century brought a flourishing of scientific-related activity generally and advances in meteorology became important from a practical point of view. However, it is with a brief consideration of geomagnetic monitoring that we introduce the ‘overseas’ observatories. Following C. F. Gauss’s suggestion of a systematic study of the earth’s magnetic field, an international array of monitoring stations was supported by the British government — the earliest example of what would later be termed a ‘campaign’. Under the supervision of Edward Sabine at the Royal Society, stations at Toronto, South Africa, St. Helena and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) — the ‘Colonial Observatories’ — were equipped with instruments designed by Humphrey Lloyd in Dublin. They monitored the field hourly (and for short periods, every few minutes), for a period of at least three years between 1840 and 1850. Meteorological observations did tag along — the temperature, in particular, was required for reducing the magnetic data — but otherwise it was a low priority concern. These colonial observatories were the prototype for later meteorological observatories, notably those at Mauritius and Hong Kong. There were observatories at Madras and at Bombay but the most influential of the early observatories in the Indian Ocean, and one which could play a role model for a similar establishment at Hong Kong, was that operating at Mauritius. Time-keeping, meteorology and geomagnetic recording were practised at a public observatory on the island of Mauritius from as early as 1831, but it was 1874 when The Royal Alfred Observatory attained the status of a government department and became operational. Its first director was Dr. Charles Meldrum, a pioneer in the study of tropical storms. There was a lot of maritime traffic in the Indian Ocean, and good seamen’s practice was that the meteorological situation should be regularly recorded in the ship’s log. Among the important parameters were the barometric pressure, the wind strength and direction, and the temperature. When later reduced and collated, such data, when combined with observations from the islands of Rodrigues, St. Brandon, Agalega, Diego Garcia and the Seychelles, enabled charts, so-called synoptic charts, of the situation at some earlier times to be drawn, which, if without direct forecasting potential, could reveal some useful information. On such a basis Meldrum first established the spiral motion of the wind inwards towards the centre of a tropical storm.49 This study gave rise to the well-regarded ‘Meldrum’s rules’ for sailors when encountering such a storm.50


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East Asia provided a notable void in the availability of global climatic data from before about 1875 — data which would be of considerable contemporary interest in the context of assessing the status of global climate change. Quantitative meteorology only became a subject of organized study from about that time.

The Philippines Of all the external institutions that were to have an impact on the study of meteorology in Hong Kong, none rivalled in importance the observatory at Manila, even if the first director of the Hong Kong Observatory did not quite see the relationship in this way. By the mid-nineteenth century the extent of the great Spanish empire had dwindled to a few remote colonies. Although the Philippines was the largest of these, it was very much neglected, and education was poorly provided for. There were universities, but science was totally lacking from their curricula. The setting up of observatories under Spanish and French control fell to the private sector, in the guise of Jesuit missionaries. Suppressed for forty-one years from 1773 — at a time when they controlled thirty astronomical observatories — the Society of Jesus was re-established in 1814 and steadily reclaimed the ground it had occupied in the intellectual world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Harnessing advances in scientific knowledge in the cause of evangelization, as they had done with astronomical knowledge at Peking in earlier years, they set about establishing institutions of learning in various parts of the world. The first half of the nineteenth century had seen major advances in the field of meteorology which elevated it to a subject of great practical utility and thus recommended itself as a vehicle for their aims, much as a later generation of missionaries would see medical skills as an opportunity in the same cause. Meteorological recordings in the Philippines were started, as a hobby, at the Ateneo, the Jesuit school in Manila, by Fr. Francisco Colina in 1860. Colina began publishing his observations in a local newspaper and these, together with the passage of a major typhoon over the city in 1865, stimulated local interests to contribute for the provision of meteorological instruments. These enabled regular monitoring and forecasting to be carried out from that year onwards, and the operation informally became known as the ‘observatory’ and Fr. Colina as its ‘director’. The importance of the school as a meteorological observatory dates from 1866, with the arrival there of Federico Faura, who put the Observatory on a firm footing.51 Faura’s first interest was astronomy, and with two assistants he joined a Dutch team to observe a total solar eclipse in 1868 on the small


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island of Mantawalok in the Celebes.52 They were brought there on a British ship under a Captain Charles Bullock, who also reported to London on his observations of the phenomenon. The attention of Europe to an observatory operating in Manila was drawn by the results of the photographs taken by the Manila priests being published in Rome by the leading astronomer Pietro Angelo Secchi.53 Faura then returned to Europe for seven years, spending time with Secchi in Rome, and at the Stonyhurst Observatory in England. Stonyhurst at the time was one of the seven first-class meteorological stations of the British Meteorological Office and had a well-known observatory for geomagnetism. He returned to Manila in 1878 to become director of the Observatory, a position he held for ten years. He immediately began his investigations into typhoons. His timely warning of the approach of major typhoons on two occasions in 1879 greatly raised the prestige of the Observatory. The study of meteorology, and especially the role of weather forecasting, had been revolutionized in Europe and North America from mid-century by the introduction of cable telegraphy. The possibilities of this new technology in East Asia were not as readily realized, but from 1 May 1880 Manila was in telegraphic contact with Hong Kong. Knowing of the Observatory’s expertise in storm warning, the government of Hong Kong requested their forwarding to the port, and this led the Spanish governor of the Philippines to set up a committee to look into the matter generally. The result was a proposal, drafted by Faura, to establish a government-supported meteorological service, to be managed by the Jesuits. It took the home authorities in Madrid three years to take action and grant the Observatory official status as headquarters of the Meteorological Service of the Philippines. In 1886 it moved out of the old city to occupy several buildings which were part of a newly constructed school in Ermita. At that time it embraced ten other monitoring stations in the islands.54 The Observatory was divided into four sections, for meteorology, astronomy, geomagnetism and seismology, respectively. Equipped with a meridian telescope by Dollond, the Observatory assumed responsibility for official time-keeping in the Colony in 1885, dropping a time-ball at noon daily, which was followed by a cannon shot in the Manila harbour. From 1880 Faura had regularly sent messages to Hong Kong, so that his observatory was seen as an important complementary component when plans for an observatory were being drawn up there in 1881. In the context of these messages, we will later have more to say on Fr. Faura, his successor José Algué and the Manila Observatory. Faura was succeeded by José Algué in 1897; Algué had studied at Georgetown University with Hagen and had worked with the distinguished meteorologist Vines in Havana. In 1901 the American administration entrusted the direction of the new Philippines Weather Bureau to the Observatory, with Algué as director.55


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China: Zikawei French contributions to systematic meteorology in the East centre on Shanghai, and to a lesser extent on their colonies in Indo-China, the former, courtesy of the Jesuits. Notwithstanding the fact that for 150 years they had served as directors of the Imperial Observatory in Peking, the beginnings of a revived scientific presence by the Jesuits in China, almost contemporaneous with those in Manila, were similarly modest. The role of some early French Jesuits in meteorological observations at Peking has been described above. When they returned to China in 1842 they started with a college and seminary at Zikawei, a suburb of Shanghai (now in Shanghai city proper). Starting in 1868, under the direction of Fr. P. M. Heude, they developed a museum of natural history, the first of its kind in China, which attained international recognition. Following that, in 1873, they again started reporting meteorological observations. Some observations from Shanghai in the period 1848–53 and in the late 1860s also exist.56 In August 1872 they decided to establish a Jiangnan Association for Science — Jiangsu and Anhui constitute the diocese of Jiangnan — which would incorporate a meteorological observatory at Zikawei under the direction of Fr. A. Colombel.57 The Observatory was equipped with a barometer (Fortin), maximum and minimum thermometers and a psychrometer of French manufacture, all calibrated at the Observatory of the Meteorological Society of Paris, and started publishing data from January 1873 in a Bulletin Météorologique. The bulletin’s ornate banner reading ‘A. M. D. G.’ [Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam], the motto of the Jesuits, was the only indicator of any evangelical content. The professionalism of a modern observatory, however, only dates from the following year when Marc Dechevrens arrived to take up the directorship, and lead it to recognition as a first class observatory. Dechevrens, a sometime teacher of physics in the Jesuit College Vaugirard in Paris, spent three months before embarking for the East at Stonyhurst Observatory, familiarizing himself with meteorological and geomagnetic observing practices. In June 1874 he reported his first measurements of the magnetic field at Zikawei.58 Like his contemporary Faura in Manila, Dechevrens took a keen interest in typhoons, and on the basis of a major one that struck Shanghai in 1879 wrote a detailed study of the storm and its effects, including an early trajectory for such a storm, which won favourable comment. These developments led the International Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai to suggest the possibility of Dechevrens heading up a typhoon signal service for the city and the coast. They would provide some support for his work, and it was expected that Sir Robert Hart and the Chinese Maritime Customs Service would supply the Zikawei Observatory with regular meteorological observations from the coastal stations. Together with data collected from ships and lighthouses, and reports from Manila and


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Tokyo, Dechevrens was able to publish a pamphlet giving an account of the typhoons of 1882. For the first time in that part of the world, in the words of a reviewer in Nature, he ‘has been able to … trace the history of several typhoons from their cradle in the equatorial maritime regions to their grave in the North Pacific Ocean’.59 We shall return to this project later. From 1884 a time service was provided for ships in the Shanghai harbour, using a Billant equatorial telescope for calibration, by dropping a time-ball at the Observatory at noon, and firing a cannon from the harbour. In 1884 Dechevrens devised a storm warning system, which was to be widely used in the region, and which could be transmitted to the harbour at Shanghai via a newly installed telegraphic link with his observatory.60 Despite the frosty attitude of Doberck in Hong Kong, the Zikawei Observatory, with some financial assistance from Chinese and English insurance companies, would establish itself as the premier meteorological observatory in the East. Under the leadership of Stanislas Chevalier and, especially from 1897, Louis Marie Froc, its operations embraced most of East Asia. By 1904, Zikawei was receiving 150 telegraphic bulletins daily from 60 stations, ranging in latitude from Yap (9° 25Ń) to Tomsk (56° 30Ń), 14 from Japan and Formosa, 11 from Siberia, 6 from Indochina, 6 from the Yangtze valley, and 11 from the China coast, among others. It took one Jesuit the better part of a day to make sense of them and prepare the forecast.61 The Observatory’s activities in magnetic monitoring and in astronomy would go on to become major autonomous operations.

South-East Asia Above and beyond the Jesuit contribution, there were some more official French contributions to meteorology in the region. Dr. Alfred-Emile Borius, the surgeon general in Tonkin, was also an enthusiastic amateur meteorologist who had worked in Africa. He was charged with setting up a meteorological service in 1884 for Indochina based on Haiphong. Although he was dead within a year, he had already established regular telegraphic contact with the Hong Kong Observatory, and was exchanging observations twice a day with them. According to the Hong Kong Daily Press in 1884, he acknowledged ‘information about typhoons from here, the necessity for which was made apparent by the disastrous typhoon of 8 July [1884] that ravaged Haiphong, the course of which was forecast here by the Government Astronomer, whose subsequent telegrams Dr. Borius states to have produced great effect and to have convinced the most skeptical’.62 From a meteorological point of view, Hong Kong stood in relation to Indochina very much as Manila stood in relation to Hong Kong; important


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traffic was to a large extent one way. Apart from dispatching routine readings by telegraph, no great activity there followed Borius’s death until the end of the century. The French administration then decided on a more comprehensive meteorological service and, in 1898, employed the services of the experienced Fr. Froc from the Zikawei Observatory to identify a suitable location for an observatory, and engaged his help in designing the observatory buildings. His choice of Phu Lien, nine kilometres south of Haiphong, became the site of the Phu Lien Observatory (also known as Tonkin Observatory, Haiphong Observatory). Apart from the major observatories in the East, it also received reports from French observers in Yunnan, Guangdong and Guangxi, but it was 1905 before it was fully operational, too late to make much impression on our story.63 A Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory at Batavia was started in 1875 under Dr. Pieter Adriaan Bergsma as director, but he died en route to the Netherlands in 1882. For most of the time 1883–99, although well funded, it lacked consistent leadership (part of the time under J. P. van der Stok), and it only gained fame from the early years of the twentieth century onwards.64 It never had telegraphic connection with Hong Kong.

Japan Although not strictly a component of the ‘colonial observatories’, early instrumental meteorology in Japan was largely in the hands of expatriates. The country in these early days played but a small role in regional meteorology. Only after the Meiji Restoration in 1867 did instrumental meteorology gain a foothold there. Hakodate Meteorological Station started in 1872. Europeans and Americans, no less than in the Philippines or China, played the lead role in this development, in the guise of yatoi, specialists recruited by the Japanese government to facilitate the entry of modern scientific methods into the administration of the Empire. Previous recordings of meteorological data, by visitors, were much less common than in the case of China because of the severely limited mobility of foreigners in the country. However, in recent years some early records have been located. Some data for Nagasaki and Tokyo (Edo) collected by a German doctor serving with the Dutch colony at Nagasaki from 1819 to 1828 survive, and there is a series of data from 1839 to 1855 recorded in the native observatory at Tokyo devoted to maintaining the calendar. The Dutch themselves started recording basic climatic data on Dejima Island (Nagasaki) from 1845.65 The earliest comprehensive recordings of meteorological parameters are by Erwin Knipping, and date from 1872. Dr. Knipping was a German mathematician


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at the University of Tokyo and he took a professional approach to the subject. Starting with data from October 1872, he regularly published monthly summaries of meteorological parameters (and sometimes daily observations) and his data were widely distributed.66 He also published some material on typhoons related to those islands. Later, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, a professor of physics in the same university also started publishing meteorological recordings. The Tokyo Meteorological Observatory was set up in 1875, followed by observatories at Osaka (1883) and Kobe (1897). Storm warnings were hoisted, starting from 1883.

Early Meteorology in Hong Kong Anecdotal records of some of the great storms in the counties adjacent to Hong Kong from the Song to the Qing dynasties (thirteenth to nineteenth century) have been preserved.67 In July 1841, in the earliest stages of the settlement by the British, a major typhoon struck, for which we have vivid reminiscences68 and, according to Eitel its near-annihilation of Hong Kong brought rejoicing in Imperial circles.69 If we ignore the very cursory observations by Meyen on Lantau in 1831, the earliest recorded readings were made by the British authorities. From day one of their occupation they monitored the basic meteorological parameters and as early as 1845 published in The Friend of China and the Hong Kong Government Gazette a ‘Meteorological Register’. A summary of the earliest data has been given by Ho.70 Both the locations and the times where the observations were made changed over time. More devoted attention to meteorology resulted in a network of seventeen stations across the globe, including Hong Kong, under British Royal Engineer officers being established in 1851, later (1 April 1862) transferred to the Army Medical Department. Climate at the time was seen as a major factor in medical conditions. Some of them, including Hong Kong, reported until December 1884, when the operation was disbanded.71 These observations were, it seems, sometimes made in parallel with other observations. The Hong Kong Government Gazette was set up in September 1853, and from 29 April 1854 carried systematic reporting of these observations in the form of monthly averages (at five recording times daily) of pressure, wet and dry bulb thermometer, and associated dew point and humidity for the previous year taken at the Seamen’s Hospital in Wanchai. A Dr. James B. Thompson addressed some remarks on the climate of Hong Kong at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in London in 1845, but he focused mainly on the precautions Europeans should take to avoid illness.72 The first published summary of the climate in Hong Kong seems to be that of a Dr. Smart at the Royal Naval Hospital in 1863, but he gives no information on typhoons.73


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He analyzed the local data, pressure and temperature from 1853 to 1858. He also compared the average of this six years’ temperature data with those reported from Macao by Beale twenty years before, noted earlier, and commented on a ‘great want of accordance’. Seeing that he could find good agreement between current data from Hong Kong and Canton, he concluded that ‘in the Macao series the instruments used may have been less exact than those with more modern improvements’. This illustrates just one of the many pitfalls modern day climatologists have to circumvent in their study of past records. Quite detailed reporting of meteorological parameters in the Gazette began in February 1861 when bi-daily (9 a.m., 3 p.m.) readings at the Government Civil Hospital (later Government Lock Hospital) for every day in the previous month were presented as ‘Meteorological Tables’ and continued, with only slight interruption, until the opening of the new observatory in 1884. Considering that they could hardly have served any practical use in the colony and were presumably offered as a contribution to the cause of pure science, the regularity, usually weekly, with which the data were published is impressive. They were sometimes summarized in global compilations, e.g. in 1863 the average monthly temperatures, as by then established, were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.74 But as with the data from other stations, it is not clear to what other purpose they obtained. To quote one writer: ‘it is possible that the Army Medical Department put them to practical use, but it seems more likely that they were stored on a shelf and forgotten’.75 In parallel with these data, from 24 November 1860 the Gazette every week printed ‘Weather Tables’ (from July 1876 titled ‘Meteorological Observations’) which contained data taken three times a day, at 6 a.m., 12 and 6 p.m. Initially the measurements were of the temperature and pressure as recorded at the Harbour Master’s Office on Queen’s Road and on the Peak, but they were eventually extended to include dry and wet bulb thermometers, maxima and minima, the wind and the weather, and to include reports also from Police Gap Station, Stonecutter’s Island and Cape d’Aguilar. From May 1876 the Daily Press also carried a ‘China Coast Meteorological Register’ which gave data for the previous day at Hong Kong, Shanghai, Xiamen and Nagasaki. There was thus no scarcity of recorded data, but the practical utility of the efforts must be questioned: published figures were never less than a week old, and usually much longer after the event. The quality of the data was also questionable in some cases; certainly the future director of the Observatory did not have a very high opinion of its reliability.76 A summary of some of the results is given by Ho.77 In terms of the acquisition of basic meteorological data the existing arrangements by the end of the 1870s were probably adequate or, at most, required some closer supervision of the instruments used.


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What was not adequately provided for was any kind of forecasting, and especially warning of, approaching typhoons. This was illustrated by the case of a big typhoon that struck Hong Kong in September 1874 and claimed more than 2500 victims. In his history of the times, Eitel, a witness to the event, gives a colourful account of it.78 An account of the storm was also carried in Nature, which claimed, inter alia, that an earthquake occurred while the typhoon was raging.79 This was based on the fact that several public clocks stopped at the same time, just the time when the storm was registered at being at its peak. This was not the first suggestion of the possible association of an earth tremour with a typhoon, but none of the evidence was unambiguous.80 The prominent meteorologist and author, Piddington, had drawn attention to the need for study of the matter, but his work seems to have been overlooked by the Nature columnist. Some years later, in 1894, Fr. Algué in Manila hit upon microseismic movements as possible precursory signals for a typhoon and devoted a chapter to them in his book.81 The Manila observatory was doing seismic monitoring at the time, taking readings of a tromometer (a primitive seismograph) every hour. From his own observations on several storms Algué argued that the main disturbances occurred when the storm was over land, and in particular when it was incident on a mountain range. It would be many more years before it became established that microseisms can be produced, mainly by the oceanic convulsions which result from cyclonic storms. Indeed these disturbances can now be used to estimate the locations of typhoons over the sea. It is likely that such travelling microseismic disturbances will act as a trigger for a more significant tremour in a region where critical crustal stresses already occur. An alternative proposal for the association of seismic movement with typhoons is the proposal that a sudden release of pressure, as would occur when the eye of a typhoon passes over land, may play a similar role in releasing pent-up stresses. The latter hypothesis, now seldom embraced, was especially propounded by Fr. Ernesto Gherzi, a later director of Zikawei, and post-1949 a member of staff of the Hong Kong Observatory.82 This has been an opportunity to mention, however briefly, the aspect of seismology in an observatory and to note that we will not be returning to it. Although obviously of great importance in places like Japan and the Philippines, in the days before nuclear power stations were contemplated it was realized that little practical benefit to the Hong Kong community could accrue from a pursuit of this discipline. There were occasional, fleeting references to the introduction of seismology into the future Hong Kong Observatory, notably efforts in 1898 from London to establish seismic monitoring. This was aborted, ostensibly on the grounds of the, not very large, cost, but with the hand of the governor strengthened by the director’s reluctance to get involved, citing lack of space and shortage of manpower at the Observatory.83 It would be 1921 before instrumentation appropriate to the


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study of the subject would be installed in the Colony. The memory of the great storm of 1874 was still very much alive when proposals came to be floated for an observatory in Hong Kong. Compared to the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, knowledge of cyclonic storms in the China Sea by the mid-1870s was very incomplete. It is clear that at the time a very promising field of study was waiting to be undertaken. The coordination of meteorological monitoring in Hong Kong was in the hands of the harbour master, and it is from his office that the first mention of a practical aspect of meteorological monitoring appeared, in the form of a notice of proposed storm warnings published in the 4 August 1877 issue of the Gazette: In the event of bad weather being apprehended by this Department, a black drum will be hoisted at the Office Flagstaff. A similar signal will be hoisted and a gun will be fired from the Police Hulk. The usual signs of approaching bad weather are a falling Barometer with high Thermometer, sultriness of the atmosphere, wildness and discoloration of the clouds, and birds flying about in unusual numbers. Should these symptoms exist and the wind be anywhere between NorthWesterly and North-Easterly, a typhoon of a severe type may be looked for. The same indications of bad weather with the wind between SouthEasterly and South-Westerly, a typhoon may be known to be in the neighbourhood, but not likely to be severely felt at Hong Kong.

This was repeated, essentially unchanged in 1878, 1879, 1880 (also now in Chinese — there was some Gazette notification in Chinese in earlier years, e.g. 28 April 1858 related to rates payment, but only in the administration of Pope Hennessy, from 1 January 1879, was regular notification of items considered of interest to the local population given in Chinese in the Gazette), 1881, 1882, 1883. These warnings were basically for the information of mariners so they could decide whether or not to set sail. More local warning signs familiar to the commercial and boat populations were not countenanced. The weather was not the only factor which motivated the maritime community to seek an observatory. The availability of a reliable time signal at the port of Hong Kong was also a high priority and it was this requirement, as we will see in the next chapter, that acted as a trigger in moving officialdom to consider the setting up of such an institution.


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2 An Observatory for Hong Kong It is therefore fortunate that the gentleman at present at the head of the Government of Hong Kong is one capable of appreciating the great importance of Dr. De La Rue’s suggestion and of energetically carrying it out. Editorial in Nature, 18811

Thinking about an Observatory Within the first thirty years of the setting up of the Colony of Hong Kong, its commercial importance grew significantly, this growth bringing with it a large increase in the number of vessels stopping off. In those days before radiotelegraphy or satellite communication, reading a physical clock on board was required in determining one’s longitude, and frequent calibration of the clock, in ports visited, to maintain its accuracy was important — at Hong Kong a one-minute error in the time (longitude) results in a positional error of about twenty-five kilometres. Courtesy of Jardine Matheson & Co., a gun was fired on Hong Kong Island every day but, based as it was on an un-calibrated clock, it was not judged adequate to requirements. As early as August 1861 the editor of the China Mail, in castigating the cavalier approach with which the gun was discharged nominally at 8 p.m. daily, called for the setting up of a time-ball based on a scientific determination of the time. So, with this requirement and the necessity for a more professional storm warning capability in mind, calls were made as early as 1877, and again in 1879, for the establishment in Hong Kong of an observatory to take charge of these tasks. The gestation of this observatory however, the last of the Oriental Observatories of the nineteenth century, was of long duration. Although public alert to the potential of such an institution dates


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from around 1874 — as we have noted, on 23 September 1874 a major typhoon struck the territory resulting in the loss of at least 2500 lives — only in 1877 were the first steps taken, and it would be another five years before a decision in favour of the project was made. Following that disastrous typhoon, the surveyor general J. M. Price canvassed the opinion of ship owners on the desirability of setting up an observatory, and lobbied for such. Many reasons for the lethargy can be suspected; a reluctance to spend scarce resources on something whose benefits were not entirely tangible, among them. The role of petty politics, and the frequently obstructive role imputed to the officer holding the governorship over those five years are, however, also not to be discounted. Some hints of these factors will emerge from our narrative of the planning and establishment of the Observatory.

Price’s First Plan An ever-present figure in the setting up of an observatory, by times encouraging and by times adversarial, was John Macneile Price, the surveyor general. After 1891 the Surveyor General’s Department would be known as the Public Works Department. Price, appointed from Sierra Leone in January 1873, had been in Hong Kong since July of that year, and in February 1877 had been elevated to both the Legislative Council and the Executive Council by Governor Sir Arthur Kennedy just before his departure.2 As a result, he was a very influential civil servant by the time Kennedy’s successor John Pope Hennessy arrived to take over on 23 April 1877. In October of 1877 Price addressed a memo to the colonial secretary3— the officer to whom he reported, effectively meant for the governor — on the desirability of building ‘a small Observatory and [engaging] upon the recommendation of the Astronomer Royal, the services of a competent professional person from England to take charge of the Establishment’. The primary purpose of the observatory he thought should be the calibration of a time-ball in Victoria Harbour. The dropping of such time-balls at a specified time every day, to communicate the local time to ships in sight, was common in major European ports. Mr. Price explained how no chronometer could be brought on shore to be rated, and then returned on board however carefully, without suffering derangement by the mere motion of carrying it in the hand — such a calibration was offered by watchmakers in Central, Messrs. G. Falconer & Co. being the best known. For work purely related to keeping the time, he proposed, the equipment required would be a transit telescope with or without a meridian circle, a sidereal clock with electro-chronograph register, electric apparatus with wires from the observatory to the signal station, and a mechanism at the latter for the instantaneous dropping of the time-ball. The foundation cost would


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An Observatory for Hong Kong

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be ₤3,000 ($14,400) and the upkeep (inclusive of a ₤500 salary for the officer in charge) requiring ₤600 ($2880) per year. This outlay, he suggested, might be recouped by a small levy on the tonnage of European and American ships frequenting the port. Anticipating that such an establishment would have paid for itself in four or five years, he noted that ‘a kindred study to be taken up would be Meteorology, for which would be necessary standard sets of automatic Meteorological instruments, Magnetometers [sic] and a Photoheliograph for the daily automatic registration of sun spots, a branch which is gradually becoming the most important one of modern meteorological observatory work’. Governor Pope Hennessy later emphasized the study of sun spots, and may have been the instigator of the mention of this topic — it was a bit of a red herring. Price had a professionally competent vision of the possibilities of such an observatory, observing that it could take over and standardize the work of several bodies in the Colony involved in meteorological measurements, noting that a submarine telegraph connection with Manila could be anticipated within a few years and the resulting ability to study cyclones would be greatly enhanced over that at the much more isolated Mauritius Observatory. Finally he noted that, though failing to yield any practical returns, ‘in the interest of science, it may not be too much to aspire perhaps in future years to a sufficiently powerful Equatorial [telescope] to join usefully in the general work of British Colonial Observatories’. The best site for the Observatory he thought would be on the isolated hillock in Kowloon known as Mount Elgin. The memo was quite comprehensive, but could not be described as a formal report or plan for an observatory, but, in conformity with some later commentators, we will find it convenient to refer to this document as Price’s first plan. At the end of the same month the commander in chief of local forces, Admiral Alfred P. Ryder, sent a memo to the governor on the same subject, including a discussion of the importance of a study of the tides in the neighbourhood of Hong Kong. He especially emphasized the need for a time-ball for ships on the China Coast, noting that the only one available was at Shanghai, and it only dropped every Tuesday. He did not go into any details on a design for such an observatory, only stressing that it was essential to have absolute accuracy in the dropping of the ball.4 Beyond this, neither the military nor the navy seems to have played any role in the development of an observatory. The first response from the governor, Pope Hennessy, to these submissions was a few weeks later when he included in the estimates for 1878 a sum of $5000 for a time-ball in Victoria Harbour. He acknowledged Price’s submission in the Legislative Council as ‘a most interesting and valuable report’, saying: ‘an observatory must be established which will enable us to work the timeball correctly, and also enable us to make a series of observations, magnetic, meteorological and relating to storms …’.5 The response in the press, China


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Mail and Hong Kong Daily Press, to this surprise initiative was lukewarm — they did not see the details in the Gazette until a week after the Legislative Council meeting — generally being of the opinion that the money could be spent on more urgent projects. It seems that when Pope Hennessy sought the authorization of the Colonial Office for the $5000 commitment, he did not forward Price’s proposal at all, but they, reasonably, requested details and the governor was instructed not to incur any expenditure until his proposal had been definitely approved.6 Such details apparently were not immediately forthcoming from Hong Kong and nothing was done in the matter.

John Pope Hennessy The figure of John Pope Hennessy, governor since April 1877, now becomes a key player in the observatory story, although his role has not been heretofore discussed in the many commentaries on his stewardship of Hong Kong. Pope Hennessy is likely the only Hong Kong governor to have had an article published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,7 and is surely the only one among them to figure in Joyce’s Ulysses — in a brothel scene.8 A highly controversial figure in all his gubernatorial postings, Pope Hennessy was the eighth governor of the Colony, and the fourth Irishman to hold the position.9 But there any continuity with precedent ends. Although he was already on his fifth gubernatorial posting when he arrived, he was in no way typical of his predecessors, either in background or in philosophy. Of native Catholic extraction in his home country, he had studied at Queen’s College, Cork, where he was awarded first class honours in surgery and medicine.10 His education in matters scientific is likely to have been broadened by his association with William Parsons, the third Earl of Rosse, who sponsored him as a candidate in a parliamentary election in 1859, a seat he won by a small majority. Lord Rosse was already famous for the seventy-two-inch telescope he had constructed on his estates at Parsonstown (Birr) in County Offaly which, for seventy years, was the largest telescope in the world, and it is very likely that the candidate Pope Hennessy stayed on the Earl’s estate during his election campaign. Pope Hennessy’s published report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society was a tenpage account of a total eclipse of the sun in August 1868 based on observations he made on the island of Borneo. He was at the time governor of Labuan. This report was to Lord Stanley, the secretary of state for foreign affairs.11 Lord Stanley was an exception among civil service administrators. He was not only a scientist, but a fellow of the Royal Society, and he communicated the document to the Society. That it was not simply viewed as the ramblings of a dilettante in the tropics is clear from the fact that George Gabriel Stokes, the very distinguished


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mathematical physicist, future president of the Royal Society and specialist in optics, added a clarifying commentary to the published version, and that the article would be referred to later.12 An elder brother of the governor, Henry G. Hennessy, a professor of natural philosophy in Dublin, had written extensively on meteorological matters by this time — he would later become a fellow of the Royal Society — but we have no evidence of any input from him to his brother’s project.13 Pope Hennessy’s arrival in Hong Kong was a development likely not to have been greatly appreciated by Mr. Price, for who was Price serving under as governor of Sierra Leone, where he had been harbour engineer when he applied for the Hong Kong posting, but the same John Pope Hennessy. Pope Hennessy was governor in chief of the West African Settlements, based in Freetown, from February 1872 to March 1873. In view of later developments, it is not too far-fetched to imagine that the more salubrious climate on the China Coast was less a reason on Price’s part for seeking a new posting than was some incompatibility with his boss on the West African Coast.14 Price would certainly have been in a position to acquaint his civil service colleagues with the mores and manners of the incoming governor. But before we pursue the consequences of the personality clash of the governor with his surveyor general, we need first to look at other professional aspects of the proposal for an observatory.

Royal Society Concerns There was another direction from which the desire for an observatory at Hong Kong arose — the Royal Society in London. While the Hong Kong side was motivated by the purely practical needs of the commercial and maritime community, the Royal Society espoused more scientific considerations and called for a filling in of the places on the globe where geophysical phenomena were monitored. The coordinates of the Oriental stations are given in the table, from which it will be seen that Hong Kong would close a major latitude gap between Manila and Zikawei. The Royal Society body concerned with meteorology

Station

Latitude 6deg 11m S Batavia 14deg 53m N Manila 22deg 15m N Hong Kong 31deg 13m N Zikawei Peking (Russian Embassy) 39deg 53m N


Longitude 106deg 40m E 120deg 52m E 114deg 12m E 121deg 27m E 116deg 29m E

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and magnetism was known as the Kew Committee, and in February 1879 its chairman, Dr. Warren De La Rue, wrote to the Colonial Office concerning the desirability of having an observatory in Hong Kong.15 It is not clear if they had seen Price’s 1877 proposals, most likely not, but he enclosed a memo from Henry F. Blanford, the meteorological reporter to the government of India. In this it was pointed out how the storms in the China Sea and the Indian Ocean had different features, how little was known about storms in the former, and how much had been learned about the latter. Dr. De La Rue hoped to ‘induce the Government of that Colony to support for a limited term of years an Observatory provided with self-recording instruments’ for observations relevant to typhoons in the China seas, meteorology generally and terrestrial magnetism. There is no mention of a time-ball, nor is it anywhere clear what number of years was envisioned. The cost of instrumentation he suggested would be ₤1000 ($5000), with an annual cost of about ₤100 ($500) plus the salary of a superintendent with two or three assistants. The latter salary he thought need not be very high if ‘intelligent non-commissioned officers of the army’ were employed. As a blandishment he cited ‘the interest in the promotion of Science so frequently evinced by your Department [the Colonial Office], and which Governor Pope Hennessy is so well qualified to appreciate’. This was more than simple flattery of the governor, for Pope Hennessy, as we have seen, did have some scientific background. It should be noted that the existence of his earlier publications is never referred to in the project, either by Pope Hennessy himself or any other of those involved. The Colonial Office replied that they could make no firm promises, but would forward the letter to Hong Kong. It seems it was not until September of that year that De La Rue’s letter was forwarded to the governor for his consideration. In his reply to the secretary of state, in November 1879 — two years after his original foray into the subject — Pope Hennessy expressed his enthusiasm for a ‘general scientific Observatory’. He was especially keen on the possibility, in the ‘clearness of the atmosphere at certain seasons’, of observing sun-spots, and pointed out that he had had $5000 voted for an observatory and time-ball in 1877, but he still made no mention of Price’s proposal of that year. He was confident that, with the secretary of state’s approval, the Legislative Council would cheerfully support a sum of $10,000 in supplementary votes for 1880 for such a project. No authority for such a supplementary vote was approved and it was not until the estimates for 1881 were being considered that the $10,000 was voted on.16 The Colonial Office seems to have been less than enthusiastic about this financial commitment, and it was not until the summer of 1882 that the secretary of state authorized the sum of $10,000.


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Discord and Delay Lacking financial backing, not much happened in the way of developing an observatory in 1880. However, by May of that year a telegraphic link was established with Manila. The fathers at the observatory in Manila had established their credentials as competent meteorologists, especially in the matter of typhoon warnings. In May 1880 Governor Pope Hennessy wrote to his counterpart in the Spanish colony asking if he could arrange daily exchange of meteorological observations with Hong Kong, enclosing at the same time a specimen form of the type used by the China Coast Meteorological Register which was being published in the Colony. He said that he had no doubt but that, by analogy with the Great Northern Telegraph Company (a Danish operated company) which transmitted data from the China Coast free of charge, the cable company communicating with Manila would waive the charges on the Hong Kong–Manila sector. It was not to be such a straightforward exercise. Fr. Faura, of course, was fully cooperative, but his observatory at the time had no official standing. The Philippines Telegraphic Agency had an array of its own meteorological recording stations throughout the islands. The situation between Manila and Hong Kong is not one of symmetry; because of the dynamics of typhoon propagation Hong Kong had the most to gain from such an exchange, but Fr. Faura suggested that Hong Kong might, in return, forward the information it was receiving from China Coast stations, maintained by the Maritime Customs at Xiamen and Shanghai — this in the days before there was a telegraphic connection between Shanghai and Manila. However, the telegraph company was not disposed to transmit messages free of charge at such a frequency, and a less ambitious exchange had to be embarked upon at first. Only important messages warning of the presence of typhoons in the region would be sent and these would be transmitted, at the Philippines government’s expense, to the Spanish consul in Hong Kong. There were some teething problems with distributing these messages: a warning of an approaching typhoon on the 28 August failed to reach mariners, giving rise to some frustration.17 In March 1882 the Eastern Extension Australasia & China Telegraph Company, a British company with a station at Bolinao on Luzon, agreed to free transmission of a daily weather report from Manila to Hong Kong and vice versa, and from April of that year the Manila data appeared in the daily China Coast Meteorological Register (along with reports from Xiamen and Shanghai).18 Although Pope Hennessy had not had personal experience of a disastrous typhoon in Hong Kong, accounts of the major storm of 1874 were very familiar to him. The directors of the Tung Wah Hospital, the leading organization at the time for social work among the Chinese population, had opened a new cemetery especially for victims of that disaster at Kai Lung Wan (Kellett Bay)


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on the western side of the island.19 As late as 1880 skeletal remains of over a hundred victims of the typhoon were still being discovered and these were interred in the graveyard. At the same time an elaborate monument was erected on the site, bearing a long inscription, including, according to Dr. Eitel’s translation: ‘His Excellency Sir John Pope Hennessy … in grand illustration of his benevolent cast of mind, undertook to defray the whole of the expenses from his private purse. He had accordingly this patriotic mausoleum built with a view to tranquilise ye spirits of the departed’.20 Perhaps an exaggeration of his generosity — histories of the Tung Wah Hospital record that he made a donation towards the renovation of the cemetery and the erection of a memorial plaque — it was one of the governor’s many attempts to show his sympathy with the local inhabitants. It will also have helped to focus his attention on the need for an observatory. The cemetery was removed in the 1950s and only the memorial stone transferred to Wo Hop Sek cemetery, see Fig. 2.

Fig. 2. The typhoon cemetery at Kai Lung Wan around 1900, and the memorial stone as now situated at Wo Hop Sek cemetery. By kind permission of Mr. Ko Tim Keung.

Financial constraints, however, seem not to have been the whole reason for delay in developing an observatory. A few years later Pope Hennessy would, by implication, blame the delay on Price, saying in the Legislative Council in February 1882:


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There are certain works, which I was anxious to see carried out some years ago, with which at that time the Surveyor General expressed his inability to deal until the repairs to the Praya Wall had been completed. … The new Observatory at Kowloon is a work of Imperial as well as local of importance [sic] … The plans of the Observatory have been referred to eminent scientific authorities in London and I am awaiting instructions before beginning the work.21

There must be some doubt about the governor’s proffered excuse. In fact, relations between him and his surveyor general had completely broken down from the summer of 1880. After a disagreement, related to sanitary matters in the colony, in the Executive Council in July 1880 Price accused the governor of showing his displeasure with him by deliberately causing to be published in the Gazette at the end of the month a nine-month-old report by Charles Ford, superintendent of the Botanical Gardens, which was very critical of Mr. Price, without affording him an opportunity to respond. The dispute concerned certain questions which had been completely settled in the intervening time and, in Price’s opinion, the only motive for this belated publication was to injure his character, a charge he made known to the secretary of state for the colonies.22 In July 1880 Price applied to the Colonial Office for a posting as surveyor general in Cyprus, to be told that no such vacancy existed, but there was considerable sympathy for him in the Colonial Office, and he seems to have decided to abandon the field for some time and applied for leave.23 This would be granted, he was informed, if he would withdraw (or substantiate) his allegation against the governor. He did withdraw the allegation, half an hour before his steamer departed on 22 December 1880, taking him on four month’s leave on half salary, but in fact he would not return until the end of October 1882, by which time Pope Hennessy had himself left the Colony. At one stage he was described as unwell, but it would seem that his four successful applications for extensions of leave were not discouraged by the Colonial Office, who found his presence in London convenient, nor, of course by the governor back in Hong Kong who found his absence equally welcome. His presence in England, in collusion with some Colonial Office officials, had the elements of a parallel administration over these two years. From June 1881 when a new daily paper, the Hong Kong Telegraph, started up we have a live commentary on the antagonism between these two men (until 1895 the Telegraph was edited by Robert Fraser-Smith, and for all the period under consideration, the Mail by George Murray Bain).24 The Telegraph invariably took Pope Hennessy’s side and the China Mail (and the Hong Kong Daily Press) were sure to find fault with almost any course of action taken by the governor; the Mail writes in February 1882: ‘Mr. Price, the professional advisor of the local government — one of those few who have the courage of their opinions, and are, therefore, in bad odour’.25


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Events finally began to find some momentum when, on 14 April 1881, the acting surveyor general, Edward Bowdler, noting that $10,000 had been included in that year’s budget for an observatory (as we have seen, the expenditure had not obtained Colonial Office approval), wrote to the governor for instructions for the work to be undertaken. He explained that he could find no relevant information in the records in his office.26 Bowdler had arrived from Mauritius in September 1874 and so must have been aware of his boss’ earlier proposal — also it had been published in the Gazette. Pope Hennessy certainly knew of it, but rather than refer Bowdler to Price’s report, on 23 April 1881 he suggested to Major Donovan, the major-general commanding, that he should have the acting surveyor general contact Major Palmer of the Corp of Engineers in the matter. Bowdler and Palmer got together on 17 May. By 5 August 1881, Palmer, with the acting surveyor general’s full agreement, submitted to the governor ‘a complete scheme for the Observatory and staff’. The document was published in the Gazette on 3 September. It was featured in an editorial column in Nature in November, which noted, among other things, that Major Palmer thought that its director should draw a salary of not less than £700 a year.27 It also observed that: ‘English officials and merchants abroad do not as a rule display much interest in science, and it is therefore fortunate that the gentleman at present at the head of the Government of Hong Kong is one capable of appreciating the great importance of Dr. De La Rue’s suggestion and of energetically carrying it out’. Palmer’s proposal was also welcomed in the China Mail but, naturally, without the warm words of praise for Governor Pope Hennessey.28

Palmer’s Report Before we look into the so-called Palmer report it is opportune to enquire who was this Major Palmer, and why he was involved. Henry Spencer Palmer (30 April 1838 to 10 March 1893) was a surveyor, astronomer and executive engineer.29 He was also aide-de-camp to Governor Pope Hennessy in Hong Kong (May 1878 to May 1880), having served in the same position with him earlier in Barbados. And they were kindred spirits. Just as Pope Hennessy was often maligned by colonists for his sympathies with native populations, so Palmer, in his later stay in Japan, was excoriated by his fellow countrymen there for his sensitivity to Japanese aspirations, and his advocacy of the revision of existing Anglo-Japanese treaties. Born into a military family in India, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in December 1856. He had extensive experience in astronomy and surveying before his arrival in Hong Kong in March 1878 as an engineer for the admiralty. He certainly had more competence, and interest, in astronomy than his fellow officer colleagues.


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Palmer’s report is entitled: ‘On the proposal to establish a Physical Observatory at Hong Kong’.30 It contained six headings: Local Time, Meteorology, Terrestrial Magnetism, Tidal Observations, Staff, and Finance. It covered provisions for the astronomical observations required to provide a time-ball service, for meteorological observations and the acquiring of information related to typhoons and monsoons in the China Sea, and for making observations in terrestrial magnetism. The possibility of separate astronomical observations using an equatorial telescope was allowed for by the possibility of extending the physical building at any time in the future. The site on Mount Elgin, as has been mentioned, was proposed, other more convenient sites on the north shore of Hong Kong Island being ruled out by the obscuration of the southern sky by the central hill range. The question of determining the latitude of the site he thought could be left to a Lieutenant-Commander Green of the U.S. Navy, whose cartographic survey ship was shortly expected at Hong Kong. In fact, Palmer himself eventually used equipment from Green’s ship to determine accurately the latitude of the site. He thought the easiest way of reliably determining the longitude was by noting the time, via telegraphic message, at a site whose position had already been accurately measured, in this case the Madras Observatory. This suggestion, after Palmer had published his result of his latitude determination, led to a correspondence, of a type not so common nowadays, in the China Mail initiated by an anonymous writer who signed himself by the Greek letter delta.31 It indicates that there was not a total lack of interest in science among the Colony’s residents, but also that the level of understanding of matters was not always very high. The nature of the controversy can be surmised by extracting a quotation from Palmer’s closing letter in the exchange: ‘I think “Delta” is wise to propose ending this correspondence, begun by himself, on a subject with which it is now plainer than ever, that he is very imperfectly acquainted’. Palmer’s proposals for time-keeping and the dropping of a time-ball, although described in much greater and helpful detail, did not differ in essence from those offered by Price in his 1877 report, his only amplification being on the observation of a distant meridian mark. In making his suggestions for the meteorology aspects, Palmer had access not only to Price’s earlier document but also to a list of instruments for a first class meteorological observatory submitted by Dr. De La Rue to the Colonial Office, along with their cost. This list comprised a barograph, a thermograph, an anemograph, a rain-gauge (pluviograph), a sunshine recorder and an electrograph; these, augmented by a tide-gauge, he adopted wholesale. In similar fashion he recommended De La Rue’s suggestion for equipment for monitoring the magnetic field. His proposals for the buildings were very much determined by the housing requirements for the apparatus that he, or De La Rue, recommended, and the provision of accommodation


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for the staff. He goes into considerable detail on the rooms for the magnetic monitoring instruments, a topic on which he had been in communication with Fr. Dechevrens at Zikawei, and Fr. Faura at Manila (who sent him his plans for a magnetic observatory there).32 He thought they should be housed in a basement or vault, almost wholly underground, which would require a long underground air-flue connected with vertical shafts. He noted that this would be expensive but that: ‘it is better to put up with the cost than to face the alternative of a building above ground, in which the great variations of temperature would be fatal to satisfactory observation’. Palmer also proposed other lines of research, without making explicit provision for them. Most notably, following a pet topic of Pope Hennessy, he expounded at length on the possible study of sunspots. At the time, there was a body of scientists who thought of the three topics of sunspot activity, terrestrial magnetism and meteorology as the three defining arms of a comprehensive cosmic physics. Sunspot activity was also being seriously considered not only as a cause of floods and famine but as a handmaiden to ‘imprudence and rascality’ in the occurrence of cycles in banking and commercial failures. Interest in the topic at Hong Kong will have been stimulated by recent reports on the rainfall at Peking. In the Peking Gazette, rainfall in the capital from 1843 to 1877 was related to sunspot numbers over the same period which, on the face of it, appeared to show a significant positive correlation between the two phenomena, but a serious statistical analysis was not done.33 Around the same time the meteorologist Fritsche investigated the relation of rainfall recorded at the Imperial Russian Observatory in the capital from 1841 to 1880 to sunspot number, and, from a more professional approach, concluded that no significant correlation existed.34 The topic was a fad that passed, and would not feature in the Observatory’s future programme. For staff establishment, Palmer recommended that there should be a director with a first assistant and a second assistant, the latter to be particularly responsible for the magnetic field monitoring, i.e. a total of three expatriate personnel. Two clerks and about seven less skilled workers it was assumed could be employed locally. The total setting up cost he put at $33,600 of which the buildings, including the magnetic room, would account for $17,400. Annual salary and maintenance costs he estimated at $10,000 per year. In addition there was the salary for a director; professional men of this calibre were not frequently to be found in the government, but, for guidance, there had been the earlier institution of the Mint, whose master started in 1863 on a salary of $6720, although no mention of this abortive institution, best forgotten, occurs anywhere in the discussions. He settled on a figure of $3600 per year, on the basis that he thought that a lower sum would not attract suitable candidates for the post. Palmer made no mention of Price, or of the proposal made in


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1877 by the surveyor general, but he was clearly not unaware of it, at one point saying: ‘I concur in the Surveyor General’s opinion that Mount Elgin affords the best available site for the Observatory’. Price had made no mention of the well-established colonial observatory at Mauritius; Palmer, however, noted that Mr. Bowdler had experience in designing and erecting ‘the excellent Magnetic Observatory at Mauritius’ and thanked him for his considerable help in drawing up his design. No mention was made of the well-known meteorologist, Dr. Charles Meldrum, the director at Mauritius, but his modest salary and annual expenses were not something that would elude the attention of the officials in the Colonial Office when the proposal got that far. The governor brought Palmer’s document to the attention of the Legislative Council on 23 August 1881, where he recommended a sum of $20,000 in the Estimates for 1882 for completing the observatory and time-ball.35 A copy of Palmer’s proposals was sent by Tonnochy, acting for Pope Hennessy who was on leave, for approval to the Colonial Office on 1 October 1881, along with the draft estimates for 1882.36 His only reservations, Tonnochy said, were about the large staff proposed by Palmer, and that he thought the salaries, excepting that of the director, to be set too high (this may reflect the opinions of the governor, not wishing to directly contradict his aide-de-camp’s suggestions). He expressed a hope that approval for work on constructing an observatory to begin within the financial year, under the supervision and guidance of Major Palmer, would be telegraphed to him. The proposals of Palmer received a lukewarm reception at the Colonial Office, as much for political reasons as for their perceived economic consequences, and certainly a positive telegraphed response was ruled out. One official minuted: ‘I think Hong Kong finances could bear $30,000 if a really good observatory cannot be supplied for less. … There is no use in telegraphing (unless it be to limit the term of Major Palmer’s employment who I am afraid will prove expensive)’,37 and another: ‘the Chinese are not much interested in these exact magnetic and other investigations and will probably prefer clean water and a Central School’.38 The colonial secretary, Lord Kimberley, in a telegram on 17 November simply instructed: ‘Spend no money upon proposed observatory until authorised by me — am consulting scientific authorities here’. Number one among these ‘scientific authorities’ was John Price, and his initial reaction was that the proposed scheme was much larger than required, and the instruments so delicate that a little climatic influence might jeopardize their working.39 Price, perhaps with some justification, was aggrieved that the matter had been taken out of his hands, and made his unhappiness known to the Colonial Office — but it was by his own choice that he was away from Hong Kong and activities there — and a Colonial Office minute questioned whether ‘the work should not be carried out by Mr. Price who is the natural person to do so’. More than just sympathy for Price was implied in the minute,


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which continued: ‘there can be no immediate hurry about it, and the Governor’s hurrying it on in Mr. Price’s absence looks rather like a job, knowing that is to say who the Governor is — I wish we had a Governor we could believe in and trust’. About one thing the Colonial Office officials were in agreement: whatever the fate of his proposals, sentiment was against Palmer playing any further role in related developments. The surveyor general’s department had adequate resources for supervising it, but Palmer should be suitably rewarded with an honorarium for his services. In the minutes also, Palmer’s background was brought to attention: ‘Mr. Palmer … is only known here as an officer who was with Governor Hennessy in Barbados and followed him to Hong Kong under promises of employment on his staff’.40 Whatever Palmer’s ambitions were, it probably did not do him any good that even before they received Tonnochy’s dispatch of 1 October, the Colonial Office had received a letter from one H. P. Wright, rector of Greatham, Petersfield, who was Palmer’s father-in-law, enclosing a copy of Palmer’s report, lauding him in extravagant terms and enquiring: ‘if your Lordship shall be able to give to Major Palmer any appointment in the Colonies I and he will be ever most grateful …’.41 An official minuted: ‘Mr Wright evidently hopes — as is no doubt intended by the Governor — that Major Palmer will be appointed Director’. It is not clear that this was true; Palmer proposed that it be someone recommended by the astronomer royal, and strongly espoused the possibility of the position being offered to Colonel A. R. Clarke F.R.S., although noting that the salary he had suggested in his proposals would likely need to be increased by 50% if it was to attract such a distinguished candidate.42 The Colonial Office could find no application for any appointment in the Colonial Service from Palmer, and he appears not to have applied when the directorship was advertised. But, as a competent astronomer Palmer appears to have been qualified for the position, and one has to wonder just how differently things might have turned out if he, rather than William Doberck, had been appointed founding director! Action was taken in London to the extent that the plans were forwarded, for comment, to the Kew Committee of the Royal Society (on meteorology), to the astronomer royal, and, although he had already seen them, officially to Mr. Price, who was still on leave, but in each case with the observation that: ‘Lord Kimberley [Secretary of State for the Colonies] feels reluctance in imposing on the Colony so large a charge as it would now involve. He will therefore be especially obliged by suggestions reducing the plan …’.43 Kimberley, who had the last say in the matter, in a comment on one of his junior’s minutes betrayed a certain lack of sympathy with the proposals, writing: ‘I agree, except the time-ball is a very dubious matter’.44 It was, as we have seen, a very substantive matter, and the comment only illustrates the general lack of scientific acumen


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among executive officials of the time. The case for action on the plan was reinforced by another letter from Acting Governor Tonnochy on 15 October reporting the occurrence of a major typhoon striking the Colony a few days earlier.45 He related how he had received two telegrams from the observatory in Manila saying that a storm was raging in Luzon and that his timely warnings to the local population had averted a lot of damage. He also informed them that Governor Hennessy had made arrangements to defray the cost of all typhoon telegrams sent from the observatory at Manila. This in itself did not soften the hearts of the Colonial Office Mandarins and, before reports from the circulated parties could be received, a detailed and rather severe assessment of Pope Hennessy’s estimates generally for 1882 was sent by Kimberley on 9 December 1881, including a confirmation that work had been suspended on an observatory.46 This dispatch was probably in Hong Kong by mid-January, but on 24 January 1882 when the governor wrote again to the colonial secretary he made no reference to it.47 The severity of the tone in this dispatch on approving the Estimates for 1882, and the stone-walling on the proposed observatory, was motivated by more than sympathy with the pique Price felt at his being ignored in the project. From the summer of 1881 the Colonial Office had to contend with a series of submissions from Hong Kong from one T. C. Hayllar, related to a major private scandal involving the governor, his wife Kitty, Mr. Hayllar and others — the ‘battle of Mountain Lodge’ affair48 — and it seems that any further latitude in taking the initiative was to be denied to the governor. But before we arrive at the final episodes in setting up an observatory some other developments deserve attention.

Shanghai Interlude The observatory proposal, as we see, was in limbo for some time, but China Coast meteorology was receiving attention from other quarters. A letter in the China Mail in September 1881 from Manila criticized the Hong Kong community for not distributing their storm warnings, and not offering to pay for the telegraphing of the same.49 Later in the autumn however some Hong Kong and Canton insurance companies collected a sum of $350 which they donated to the Manila Observatory for the purchase of instruments.50 This earned editorial praise, and chastisement of locals for ignoring Manila warnings, saying that: … too much cannot be said by way of thankfulness … for the happy idea suggested and carefully carried out by the Rev. Director of the Observatory. There was much practical sense [and] public spirit in the action of the Marine Insurance Companies here in subscribing towards the instruments for the Observatory at Manila.


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Although the Zikawei Observatory had operated at a professional level, publishing annually from 1875 compilations of its Bulletin Mensuels, and Dechevrens’s publication of 1879 on typhoon tracks was favourably noticed by the commercial community in Shanghai, his observatory had no public role in the city. The daily papers carried a table of the previous day’s weather at Woosung and the China Coast Meteorological Register, an exact copy of that printed at Hong Kong, just tabulated the meteorological parameters at Xiamen, Hong Kong and Shanghai. No mention was made of Zikawei and no forecasts or storm warnings were published. A severe typhoon struck the city in August 1881, for which the only source of warning was a vague message from Xiamen. In its aftermath the editor of the North China Daily News suggested that the lighthouses operated by the Maritime Customs might be able to flash information on the approach of a threatening storm to monitors ashore.51 If such monitors were in ready contact with Xiamen or Hong Kong, the telegraphic communication with these centres (and an anticipated Fuzhou-Xiamen connection) would enable a central station at Shanghai to correlate the information and formulate storm warnings, although the Zikawei Observatory was not explicitly mentioned in this context. A feedback loop would also enable these same lighthouses to signal more definitive storm warnings to passing ships. On 20 September 1881 a meeting of the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce took up the issue of storm warnings, which was of interest to many of its members, especially those in the marine and insurance industries. Those present expressed their support for a scheme, laid out by the president, for issuing storm warnings under the wing of the Zikawei Observatory, to which a telephone line from the city would have to be laid. The representative of the Telegraph Company expected that messages from relevant stations would be transmitted gratis, as they already were from Xiamen and Hong Kong, while James H. Hart, representing the Customs, expected that the Chinese authorities would have great interest in supporting the scheme, but emphasized that he was not at the time in a position to speak officially on the subject.52 They set up a ‘Meteorological Committee’ to look into the proposal in detail, consisting of Messrs. Forbes (the president), Gultzow (a Chamber officer), Hart (commissioner of customs at Shanghai), Lang (representing shipping interests), Morris and Tong King-sing (both from the Chamber), and they invited Dechevrens to cooperate.53 This the reverend director did, via a long submission, in content not dissimilar to Robert Hart’s earlier scheme, which he brought to the committee in January 1882.54 Data would be collected from various observers along the China Coast, and be correlated by a central station. The central station would be the Zikawei Observatory, and its director, whose nomination would always rest with the superiors of the Society of Jesus, would be the ‘Director General of the China coast and seas’. Official recognition should be sought from the Chinese government, and the observatory at Zikawei would undertake to publish in Chinese simple instructions for native observers whom the Chinese authorities might call


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in to assist in the scientific undertaking. A subsidy in the region of 1800 to 2400 taels ($2880–$3840) per annum would have to be provided to the Observatory for operating and publishing costs (cf. Palmer’s proposed budget for a Hong Kong Observatory of $10,000).55 Meteorological observations on a uniform system would be channelled via a telephone line from Shanghai to Zikawei (to be provided by the Chinese authorities and underwriters), from ships on the China and Japan coasts (the Meteorological Office in London had furnished the P. & O. Company steamers with instruments and printed forms), China Customs staff at all the lighthouses and light ships, harbour masters’ stations at the treaty ports, and observers at Japan, Peking and Vladivostok. Zikawei also had less than regular inputs of meteorological data from some missionary stations in the interior. The instruments required would be supplied at their own cost by the steamship owners and the Customs. The cooperation of the Manila and prospective Hong Kong Observatory would be solicited. The role of the Chinese Customs staff would be central to the exercise and ‘none but reliable observations’ were to be published, the director being empowered to inspect the stations from time to time. It took some time for the different wouldbe participants in the proposal, the ship owners, the telegraph companies and the Chinese authorities to consider the various aspects and respond. In the meantime the proposal was sent to the Colonial Office in London, who forwarded it for comment to the Kew Committee, and to Mr. Price, then residing in the capital. The meteorologists were, not surprisingly, enthusiastic and recommended the Colonial Office to give the project their full support. It should be remembered that at this time, the spring of 1882, no definite decision had been made on an observatory at Hong Kong, although it was under active consideration. Price, citing his credentials in these matters, submitted a five-page analysis of the scheme, an account that described more clearly than anywhere else, its contents and ramifications. He expected that the major part of the annual cost ($5600) would be borne by the Imperial Maritime Customs, and he felt that Hong Kong should not object to an annual contribution of around $560. He, personally, was quite in favour of supporting the scheme. He opined that the observatory at Zikawei would be to the North China Sea what the future one at Hong Kong would be to the South China Sea. Both observatories, he thought, would: publish and exchange weather forecasts for the benefit of the shipping frequenting their waters, and it cannot be denied that the value of the Hong Kong reports would be immensely enhanced by the simultaneous appearance at Hong Kong, by those received from Shanghai … [its extent] promises to make its collaboration so specially valuable to Hong Kong and so deserving of whatever pecuniary assistance that Colony may afford.56


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These sentiments, it would turn out, were diametrically opposed to the ideas of the Observatory’s founding director. Saderra Masó categorizes it as the ‘original sin’ which motivated Doberck’s hostility to Dechevrens and Zikawei in later years — and it will not be a surprise that his relationship with Price was also more than frosty.57 The Colonial Office balked at any financial commitment, pending more details of the project.58 In the end, no subsidy was sanctioned from Hong Kong, events being overtaken by two developments. The first was the decision in favour of Price’s second proposal, and the sanctioning of the Hong Kong Observatory, although this of itself need not have invalidated information arriving from Shanghai. More ominously, the success of Dechevrens’s proposal was seriously cast in doubt. At a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in April 1882 the committee reported: We were able to go to a certain point very successfully, but we have met with a check at the last, in having failed to obtain the support, the active assistance, of the Customs staff at the different Lighthouses, Lightships and Harbour-masters’ stations. … The owners of the steamers have assisted us … sixty steamers are reported regularly to Fr Dechevrens. The Great Northern Telegraph Company … the Chinese Telegraph Company are willing … . Letter has been received from Mr Tong Kingsing [manager of the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company] saying that he has obtained official sanction from the Viceroys of Chihli and Nanking to have telephone communication between Shanghai and the Sicawei Observatory … . The only thing now left to do is to get a number of shore stations. Mr Hart [J. H. Hart] has declined to cooperate officially, and when I saw him this morning he did not give any reason for doing so. I believe, however, that it will be possible for Father Dechevrens to arrange to get these reports, so that the refusal on the part of Mr Hart need not necessarily stop the scheme from being carried out.59

A few days later the China Mail editorial noted: the proposal was a … gigantic measure … . Meteorology of the Sea and Coast line of China but also cover … the interior of the Empire … .We opine … that Father Dechevrens acted incautiously in not submitting his project to the Chinese Government whose cooperation was a sine qua non for its success …. We are not, therefore, surprised at the position taken by the Inspector General of Chinese Customs in reference to a scheme, the organization and management of which was to be held by the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, while its working was to be placed entirely at the disposal of a Jesuit Priest — both beyond his control. … We here observe Mr Hart’s reasons for declining to cooperate officially. He already does for it all that he ever could … This is proved by the Rev. Father Dechevrens himself when he asserts that he could arrange to receive the numerous reports, so that the refusal of Mr. Hart


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need not necessarily stop the scheme from being carried out … . The Chinese Government may undertake the work — or, perhaps, start an independent scheme of their own … If Meteorological Stations are to be scattered over the Empire, the probability of their doing so becomes very strong. If, with this, we couple their prejudice against foreign intervention, the contingency stated almost amounts to a certainty.60

It was simply the case that the Chinese government felt more threatened, and justifiably, than the Japanese government in such dealings with the Western powers. But things were not allowed to rest there. While the Chamber was of the opinion that the organization of weather reports and weather forecasts was work which ought to be undertaken by the Chinese authorities themselves, they saw that the Chinese authorities were doing nothing in the matter and decided to work the question in a practical way to see if it was not possible to utilize the observatory at Zikawei under Rev. Marc Dechevrens, ‘who is admitted to be one of the ablest authorities on meteorology in this part of the world and perhaps anywhere …’.61 They reconstituted their Meteorological Committee to be in charge of the financial and business management of the scheme and charged it with pursuing the project. Imperial government suspicion might formally handicap the proposed project, as it did Robert Hart’s proposal of thirteen years earlier. But, as we know, most of these Customs stations were equipped with instruments, bought by Hart before his original project aborted, and the Customs Service had a large measure of autonomy. So, despite Hart’s failure to gain imperial cooperation in the project, it is not a surprise that a General China Meteorological Service, with input from the Customs stations, was established, although there was some bickering over what route the telegraph poles linking Zikawei with Shanghai should follow, in the French sector or in the international sector. This led to the resignation of all the members of the French Municipal Council.62 The Chamber of Commerce Meteorological Committee voted a subsidy for the project, and subscriptions were collected from the local insurance companies, so that Zikawei could begin issuing a daily meteorological bulletin in October 1882, which was carried by the three Shanghai newspapers. Dechevrens went to Europe in the winter of 1882 to inspect suitable apparatus for fitting out ships and on-shore stations.63 Instruments adopted for the French Marine by the Central Meteorological Bureau of France were chosen, ostensibly because a metric system of measurements was to be employed. Funds were also voted by the Municipal Council of the French Concession for the installation of a time-ball (and storm warning signal) in the port of Shanghai, the signal to be telegraphed daily from the Central Zikawei Observatory at noon. The full scheme, including a warning system, was only completed in 1884 when a signal mast was erected on the borders of the French and international concessions and connected by telephone with Zikawei. Thus, before any final


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decision had been made on setting up an observatory in Hong Kong, a China Coast meteorological service was in operation, with a director whom ‘the Jesuits would select’. One of the early outcomes of the project was Fr. Dechevrens’s comprehensive publication on the typhoons of 1881, on which a China Mail editorial commented: ‘The system of intelligence which, with the sanction of Sir Robert Hart, has been extended to nearly every open port and light-station in the Empire, will, it is presumed, give the worthy Father more ample means than he has yet had with which to study the course of these storms along the China Coast’.64 The co-existence of this rival body would be seen as a challenge by the founding director at Hong Kong, and its governance seen by him as an intolerable affront. The eventual stand-off, as we will see, would cast an unfortunate cloud over the development of meteorology in that part of the world for the next quarter century.

Politics Dominates In the matter of an observatory for Hong Kong, parallel developments moved at a different pace in London and in the Colony. After three months, the Colonial Office still had not received the views of the scientific authorities canvassed. In Hong Kong, on the other hand, notwithstanding the Colonial Office telegram of the 17 November 1881, the project was receiving plenty of attention. At the end of December the acting surveyor general, E. Bowdler, submitted a memorandum to the governor discussing the proposed salary for a director, saying that he thought the sum suggested by Major Palmer, $3000 per annum, too small ‘to ensure the services of a First Class Observer’.65 Bowdler had spent twelve years in Mauritius, from where he was appointed to Hong Kong in June 1874, and using his information on the rewards received by the director of the Observatory there, he claimed ‘upwards of £1000 (approximately $5400) per annum plus accommodation’ would be appropriate rate. He also thought that there was no necessity for a second assistant, as originally proposed by Palmer, but that the salary of the first assistant should be set around $2000 per annum (in contrast with Palmer’s suggestion of $2400). This was the first mention of the important Mauritius Observatory in the context of the proposed new observatory. Bowdler also displayed some idealism in his submission. He noted that: The formation of a Meteorological Society in Hong Kong would be a great boon to its inhabitants who at present possess neither a scientific nor Literary Society of any description … [by means of] such a Society the Director of the Observatory would keep him, and his work, constantly before the public, eliciting their sympathy and co-operation, also giving vitality to the Institution.


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As we will see, the founding director would need no such assistance to keep himself constantly before the public. There would be later calls for the setting up of a meteorological society.66 Pope Hennessey was in a position where he could please nobody. Another telegram from London on 28 December 1881 advised: ‘cannot yet commence Observatory’ but he, somewhat furtively, continued with his plans for the same. On one side he was chided for so doing. According to a protagonist in the Legislative Council, F. Bulkeley Johnson, on 9 March 1882, the instruction to halt work on an observatory had been in the hands of the executive government since the month of January, and had been suppressed by the governor.67 This would cause a lot of commotion. We have seen that on 24 January when Pope Hennessy wrote again to the colonial secretary enclosing a further report from Palmer and Bowdler’s memorandum, he made no mention of the 9 December dispatch confirming the suspension of work on an observatory.68 He raised some more hackles when he added that: ‘When I receive Your Lordship’s permission to lay the foundation-stone, I propose naming the Observatory, the Kang Hi Observatory, as a mark of respect to the Emperor of China who showed so much sympathy for scientific research in his day, and who built the modern part of the Observatory that still exists in Peking’. It was typical of Pope Hennessy to introduce a Chinese dimension to the project; his modus operandi of making concessions to local sensitivities in all the colonies in which he served was something for which he was being continually scolded by the colonists.69 His proposal got short shrift in the minutes of the matter at the Colonial Office: ‘why should the Emperor Kong-Hi [Cantonese transliteration] be immortalised in Hong Kong, rather than the Queen or the Prince of Wales’, being a typical comment. The new report from Palmer contained revisions of his earlier plan, mostly related to tide gauges and the relation of tides to earthquakes, and his suggestion that the services of Colonel Clarke as director be explored. In apparent opposition to London’s wishes, and in furtherance of the project, Pope Hennessy assigned Palmer new duties by commissioning him to determine the latitude of the site proposed for the observatory. This he achieved very successfully, making use of a 2.5-inch aperture transit instrument, borrowed from the commander of a U.S. survey ship which was making a survey locally, which he could use as a zenith telescope. Using Talcott’s method, which he explained in his report, his final result was 22° 18´ 11.89±0.19”.70 Because he did not make any correction for the wobble of the equatorial plane (Chandler’s correction) it is difficult to say how accurate this is, or compare it meaningfully with the accepted geographical latitude for the same spot, 22° 18´ 12.82”. It is a little outside the range of values found by Dr. Doberck fifteen years later using the same method, who found the seconds component to lie in the range 12.66” to 13.61” with a quoted error of about ±0.03”.71


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Pope Hennessy’s adversaries in the China Mail were simultaneously excoriating him for delay in the project. On 17 February, the editor wrote: The explanation now submitted [the implication by the governor that Price was responsible] as to the delay is wholly unsatisfactory. It is an insult to the intelligence of the East and a direct slur on the gentlemen already consulted on the subject. Is scientific and professional knowledge among the advisers of Government in the Colony in such a depressed condition that, with the views of Major Palmer, and those of the Directors of the Observatories of Zi Ka Wei and Manila available on the subject, a reference must be made to scientific authorities in London for the approval of plans designed under local conditions which perhaps they know nothing about? Governor Hennessy ignores the fact that among the officers of the numerous different men-of-war, congregated in our harbour, there was a possibility of obtaining additional scientific advice, if needed, on points connected with a local Observatory: but we anticipate that he did not care, nor did he seek it. We are of the opinion that there was nothing to prevent Mr Bowdler from carrying out the main buildings and miscellaneous erections of the Observatory, in consultation with Major Palmer.72

Another telegram on 23 February 1882 informed the governor: ‘Reports on proposed Observatory not yet received cannot promise early decision. Meantime no action’. Nevertheless, on 3 March 1882 the governor brought to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council a request for money for Palmer, saying: … the very valuable services rendered to the Colony by Major Palmer … Major Palmer has been occupied since the middle of last May with matters relating to the proposed Observatory such as The preparation and publication of a complete and elaborate scheme for that establishment. The preparation of designs and drawings for the Main Observatory building. Revision of design for Magnetic basement and estimates for both buildings. He has submitted two substantial Reports on Observatory questions, has been to Canton for the purpose of finding a suitable building material for the Magnetic Observatory and has entered into a considerable correspondence with persons at home and in the East, in the General interests of the project. During the last two months he has (with my approval) been occupied with a precise determination of the latitude of the proposed Observatory site — an investigation which was necessary in consequence of the uncertainty of previous determinations in the Colony, and which has saved the Government the expense of providing a costly instrument and room for that purpose. Major Palmer’s Report on this subject, indicating great care and labour, was laid before the


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Legislative Council on the 1st instant. … $200 a month would be a fair and moderate remuneration to give him and I think he should continue to be paid at that rate for any further period during which he may be employed in supervising the erection etc. of the Observatory buildings.73

One of the unofficial legislators, F. Bulkeley Johnson did not object to the sum, but said he had reservations about continuing the payment, unsure of the progress to complete the Observatory within a definite period of time.74 In the event, the Committee voted a lump sum of $1000 to Palmer for his efforts, without any promise of future participation in the project. This expenditure was in obvious contradiction to the instructions from the Colonial Office, and the governor was to be advised of Lord Kimberley’s regret at his action — diplomatic for a reprimand. It is clear that the governor used some underhand ways in his desire to reward his long-standing colleague for the work he put in. It was at the same meeting that the governor informed the Colony that he would be taking six months’ leave. He left, never to return, on the 7th of the month. He was, effectively, recalled, but ‘misbehaviour’ over the Observatory hardly figured in the reasons, of which there were many, for his fall from grace; the ‘battle of Mountain Lodge’ affair, mentioned earlier, was probably the determining factor. It was only on 9 March, two days after Pope Hennessy’s departure, that the Earl of Kimberley’s dispatch of 9 December 1881 was circulated to legislators and this caused a lot of outrage and comment in the Colony.75 Mr. Bulkeley Johnson, in particular, was very aggrieved, writing to the colonial secretary: this vote [of $1000] would have met with strenuous opposition in point of principle, if the instructions … of the 9th December, which had been in the hands of the Executive Government since the month of January, had been made known to the Members of the Council. … Government … so far back as the middle of January last, was in possession of a dispatch from the Secretary of State, suspending the vote yet … Major Palmer, with the approval of the Governor, was permitted to proceed with his work and a proposal to ask a payment for these services … was circulated for the approval of members of the Finance Committee, while they were kept in ignorance of the fact that the works had been suspended by order from home.

The Colonial Office, nevertheless, in an April dispatch did approve the $1000 payment to Major Palmer, and again requested no additional expenditure on an observatory be incurred until further notice.76 Excepting a brief, but crucial, appearance on the scene in 1890, this would be the end of Henry Palmer’s involvement with the Hong Kong Observatory. Neither the Kew Committee, the astronomer royal nor Mr. Price were going to contradict Lord Kimberley’s views on the extravagance in Palmer’s plan, but it was Price that took the initiative by developing a new proposal for an observatory. We will call it Price’s Second Report.


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Price’s Second Report This report, which was never published, was drafted while Price was in London.77 He sometimes uses the expression ‘in this country’ where he had access to the recommendations of the Kew Committee as well as Palmer’s detailed proposal although, pari passu, he never mentions Palmer or his proposals. He explains how, as far back as 1876: ‘I selected Mount Elgin as the best place for the buildings … an isolated eminence free from any disturbing influences’. He went into great detail on the buildings and the specific purposes of each room therein. In contrast to Palmer’s proposal, he suggested two isolated wooden huts with felted roofs, three hundred feet away from the main building for the magnetic instruments: ‘facsimiles of the small and inexpensive structures used for the same purpose at Kew Observatory’. More elaborate buildings, possibly in the future, he reckoned would cost about $6000. He estimated the cost for the building and fittings at $12,300, against $23,000 by Palmer. Like Palmer, he took as his benchmark for equipping the new observatory the inventory suggested by the Kew Committee. For astronomical equipment, including timeball, he estimated a cost of $4190 (Palmer — $4250), meteorological equipment $1600 (Palmer — $2100) and magnetic equipment (which would not include self-recording instruments) $560 (Palmer — $2260), a total of $6350 together with miscellaneous items, a grand total of $18,650, 56% of the cost of Palmer’s recommendations. ‘I regret the estimate of first cost should so greatly exceed the grant of $10,000 conceded by the Secretary of State for the Colonies for this purpose’. His approach was conservative, noting, for example, the unforeseen effects of the unfriendly climate on instruments, and he particularly emphasized the evolutionary nature of the enterprise as he saw it: ‘we should start on a reduced plan and increase the scope of the work of the observatory, step by step, as personal experience may hereafter dictate to the scientific officer in charge’. But he was also circumspect in his judgment of the equipment required, noting in defence of his decision to omit, at least in the short term, the inclusion of a relatively expensive electrograph (an instrument for measuring electric fields in the atmosphere, now obsolete) as recommended by the Kew Committee, that: ‘perhaps it is not too much to say … that it has scarcely yet emerged from the experimental stage sufficiently to assert its position as an indispensable working accessory to an observatory’ — an opinion that seems largely confirmed in hindsight. Another judgment of his that would reveal its validity in time was his ‘fear that the [anemographs] in use in European observatories which I have examined, will scarcely stand the test of a Hong Kong typhoon’. Also, Palmer’s suggestion for tidal observations was bypassed. When it came to the annual expenses he again whittled down Palmer’s figures by about 50%, the most drastic reductions being in the salary of the superintendent from $3600


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down to $2400 per annum, with a free residence, the elimination of the post of second assistant and the reduction of the salary of the only clerk from $1200 to $600 per annum. He did add: ‘the Secretary of State will doubtless approve of an increase of salary following any material increase of the scientific duties and responsibilities of the office’. Including the assistant and two lower-level staff, plus incidental expenses he arrived at a figure of $5,200 per annum (Palmer — $10,000). It is noteworthy that he did not continue with his suggestion of 1887 that the expenses might be defrayed by a small levy on vessels using the harbour. He outlined the qualification he thought necessary in the superintendent and in his assistant, and specifically recommended that the superintendent should be the head of his own department and directly responsible to the executive government. Price sent in his proposal to the Colonial Office in late May 1882, pointing out that his scheme: ‘does not fall short of the recommendations of the Kew Committee of the Royal Society in respect of meteorology if the electrograph is added to the instruments in my list. In respect of terrestrial magnetism the underground observatory and self recording magnetometers are omitted in my project for the reasons given in the report’.78 He also recommended that as the work of the Observatory took on wider proportions the superintendent’s salary should be increased and his staff augmented. On 2 June 1882 both schemes were sent to the Kew Committee and to the astronomer royal and by the end of July replies had been received.79 The astronomer royal, W. H. M. Christie, wrote: I am of opinion that the smaller and simpler scheme put forward by Mr. Price will suffice for present requirements. The pressing needs of the Colony appear to be a time ball and a meteorological service. Mr. Price appears to me to have provided for these with due regard to economy and efficiency. … Viewing the character of the soil of Hong Kong I think it more prudent not to incur any great expenditure for a complete magnetic observatory until further investigations have been made. I should therefore prefer Mr. Price’s scheme in this respect as providing to a certain extent for magnetic observations without involving a large outlay of money.80

For a superintendent he suggested an advertisement in Nature, as follows: ‘Hong Kong Observatory — candidates for the post of Director of the Astronomical, Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory about to be established at Hong Kong are requested to apply by letter to the Astronomer Royal, Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The salary is ₤500 per annum with a free residence’. ‘I fully concur in Mr. Price’s recommendation that he [director or superintendent] should be the head of a Department and be responsible directly to the Executive Government’. The vice chairman of the Kew Committee approved, with little comment, Price’s proposal, and with no mention of Palmer.81


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Not knowing when the Colony would be informed of a decision to build an observatory, the harbour master, writing in March 1882 added a suggestion to his annual report for 1881, that a time-ball be dropped daily in the harbour.82 This was arranged, and from the following 1 August a red ball was dropped at 1 p.m. local time (notified as GMT 5h. 23m. 20s.), daily except Sundays, at the base ship HMS Victor Emmanuel. The $30 per month to be paid to the officer responsible was approved by the Colonial Office, but Administrator Marsh’s request that not all the cost of an observatory should fall on the Colony fell on deaf ears.83 Finally, in a dispatch of 11 August 1882, commencement of work on an observatory was sanctioned, at the same time presumably authorizing usage of the $10,000 voted for the project in the estimates of two years earlier plus another $8680 required, and instructing that the work was to be carried out by the surveyor general’s department.84 The secretary for the colonies, in his dispatch, added: it appeared to me that Major Palmer’s scheme went beyond what the Colony could easily afford and in referring it to the Kew Committee and the Astronomer Royal I requested their opinion as to the possibility of framing some more economical scheme. … I also requested Mr. Price to submit such a scheme … [whose] report was subsequently referred to the Kew Committee and the Astronomer Royal and has been approved by them as sufficient for present requirements. … Convey to Major Palmer my thanks for his suggestions and for the interest which he has taken in the matter and to inform him that his scheme has not been adopted. … I am of the opinion that it will be preferable to designate the new observatory simply ‘The Hong Kong Observatory’.

This, indeed, is how it became known, but it is interesting to note that in Chinese the title of the institution was mistranslated to ‘Astronomical Observatory’, a title it still holds.85 It is very likely through ignorance that the later director, Doberck, always keen to prosecute astronomical observations, never tried to exploit this fact.

An Overview Economy, in the eyes of the Colonial Office, was certainly a primary concern where expenditure in the backwater of Hong Kong was concerned, but one cannot believe that it was the only factor at the time that was decisive in the selection of Price’s rather than Palmer’s proposal. Neither can the scientific merit of Price’s plan, although it must be conceded that it was a very professional presentation for somebody who had many other irons in the fire, have been the single deciding factor. The political aspects — Price’s persona non grata status


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with the departing governor, J. Pope Hennessy, and Palmer’s close links with and frequent praise by the same — almost surely were as important as any of the other considerations, and likely to have been a major consideration in the decisive deliberations; the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph would later speak of Price’s ‘decided triumph over Governor Hennessy in London’.86 That the enforced economy in the matter was to come back and haunt the authorities in Hong Kong was not something that could then have been foreseen in this context. And it was not all the economy it seemed; the eventual cost of setting up the Observatory, according to the governor writing three years later, was $34,500 to be compared with estimates of $18,680 and $33,600 by Price and Palmer (including a magnetic room) respectively, with an annual maintenance cost at that time, 1885, of $5820 (against Price’s figure of $5200).87 Formal accounts of the establishment of the Observatory have been heavily influenced by Doberck’s very early, rather brief, account given in his Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in 1884, later elaborated on by T. F. Claxton, then director, in the Royal Observatory Hong Kong Monthly Meteorological Bulletin for January 1913. This account starts with a memorial from Dr. Warren de la Rue in 1879 to the secretary of state for the colonies pointing out the desirability of establishing an observatory at Hong Kong, a location he thought favourable for the study of meteorology in general and typhoons in particular. The support from Pope Hennessy and Palmer’s proposal are referred to, and the overriding of the latter for economic reasons by a simpler scheme proposed by Price described. The absence of any weather forecasting component in the adopted scheme is commented on. No mention is made of the earliest calls for a time-ball service, and Price’s 1877 proposal is totally ignored. This account has been carried over, largely unchallenged, by some later historians, Starbuck in 1951 and Dyson in 1983, surprisingly since Eitel writing in 1895 rather emphatically stressed Price’s role: This scheme was first mooted in Spring 1877, when some shipmasters and the manager of the P&O Company circulated for signature a petition requesting the Government to arrange for the daily dropping of a time ball. The movement was taken up by the Surveyor General (J. M. Price) who elaborated the very plan on which the Observatory was subsequently established and suggested the construction, on Mount Elgin at Kowloon, of an Observatory, which should be placed under the charge of a professional man to be recommended by the Astronomer Royal, and, whilst procuring storm warnings and meteorological observations, secure the daily dropping of a time ball in front of the Water Police Station. Apart from the subsequent demand for astronomical observations, every essential feature of the present Observatory scheme was proposed in detail by Mr. Price … . Some three years later another series of papers was published in the Gazette (September 2 1881),


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Early China Coast Meteorology propounding a seemingly new scheme, which, though being merely an expansion of the details of Mr. Price’s scheme by Major H. S. Palmer, R.E., with the superaddition of some recommendations concerning astronomical observations to be taken, not only omitted all mention of Mr. Price, but gave the credit of the scheme to Sir J Pope Hennessy.88

By the time he wrote this, Eitel had more than lost the early admiration he had held for Pope Hennessy, and Palmer’s ‘guilt by association’ was an easy target for him. It was Ho in 2003 who recalled the earliest proposals by Price.89 But, notwithstanding his slight on Price’s early efforts, Palmer’s report was a very professional discussion of all aspects of a future observatory and, even though it was not to be finally used as the basis for the Observatory, it would be repeatedly referred to in very favourable terms by the future director, who used it as his yardstick for development of the institution. With Price scheduled to return to Hong Kong, now that Pope Hennessy was gone, and his proposals adopted for the new observatory, it was clear that there was no future for Palmer in the enterprise, and he left Hong Kong in December 1882, spending several months in Japan before reaching England. Despite his father-in-law’s efforts, he was to have no further part in colonial administration. He fell in love with Japan, and returned there in February 1885 to spend the rest of his life in that country, starting a new family with a damsel there. He worked on designing waterworks and harbour works for Yokohama, until his sudden death in February 1893. His efforts were much appreciated in that city, and a bust to his memory stands in the Nogeyama public gardens in Yokohama.90 But before that he did make one fleeting visit to Hong Kong, a visit that was crucial in the later expansion of the Observatory.


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3 A Director for the New Observatory In England he would be in the one hundred and fifty second rank, immediately below subaltern officers in the army, and immediately above yeomen, tradesmen, artificers and labourers. Anonymous Colonial Office official, 18831

Introduction Almost all the obstacles, inter-personal and financial, to setting up the new observatory had been overcome by late October 1882 when Price arrived back in Hong Kong, so at that end it was full steam ahead for the construction of the Observatory. The only outstanding item was a request for permission from the War Office to occupy the site on Mt. Elgin. This eventually arrived in November 1882 when the War Office informed the Colonial Office that they would not object to the erection of the Observatory there if no other suitable site was available for the purpose, but that in the event of war it would probably be occupied and entrenched for defence.2 With provisions for the construction made, it remained to find suitable candidates for the positions involved in its operations. The role of the founding director of the new observatory is as much an integral part of the story of its establishment as the role of the political machinations that attended its planning, and the infrastructural developments necessary for its realization. This role, it will turn out, was no less lacking in drama than the events that preceded it, and throws additional light on the methods and mores that characterized colonial governance and its relations with London — for, like Pope Hennessy, the new director was to be an ‘outsider’.


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Staffing the New Observatory The astronomer royal, to whom the job of making recommendations for the positions was assigned had, as we have seen, recommended to the Colonial Office that they should advertise in Nature for a superintendent — the position was referred to by Price variously as superintendent or government astronomer — but this seems not to have been done. Rather, they simply wrote back to the astronomer royal asking him to nominate some suitably qualified ‘gentleman’. Price suggested that the astronomers royal for Ireland and Scotland be also canvassed in the matter.3 Among those who came into consideration was August William Doberck. Doberck was based at a private observatory at Collooney in rural Sligo in the west of Ireland, and may have conveyed his desire to move elsewhere to Robert S. Ball, the then doyen of Irish astronomers at the Dunsink Observatory, near Dublin. Ball, as astronomer royal for Ireland, recommended him to the astronomer royal, William H. M. Christie, as did William Spottiswoode, president of the Royal Society. Doberck ended up second on a short list of five candidates. The favoured one was Colonel A. R. Clarke, fifty-four years old and a fellow of the Royal Society, who, in 1880, had published a famous treatise on geodesy. Palmer, as we have seen, had already strongly canvassed for him as a desirable candidate in the spring of 1882. However Clarke had been forcibly retired from the Ordinance Survey two years earlier because of a refusal to accept a posting to Mauritius, so when the salary on offer is taken into account it is not a surprise that he never really entered the race, to Doberck’s advantage.4 Writing from Collooney on 10 January 1883 to the secretary of state for the colonies, Doberck said how he had heard from the astronomer royal of Lord Derby’s decision to appoint him, and he accepted with gratitude the post of ‘Director of the new Hong Kong Observatory’. This was before the formal letter of appointment was sent out, which was not until the 29th of the month.5 The appointment was later made effective from 2 March 1883. The astronomer royal gave it as his opinion that ‘Dr Doberck is … best fitted for the post. From what I know of his scientific attainments I should not hesitate … in recommending him for the appointment’. His new position was welcomed by a commentary in Nature, where he was referred to as ‘astronomer to the new institution’ — there were government astronomers at Mauritius, Madras and in the Australian colonies — and it noted that the opportunities afforded for independent and original work in Hong Kong were very great.6 As we will see later, this early ambiguity in some quarters as to his exact title, ‘director’ or ‘government astronomer’, was to become a major bone of contention in his relations with the authorities in Hong Kong after his arrival there. In addition to providing a time service, the new observatory was


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charged with making meteorological and magnetic observations, but with no mention, as the director would later point out, of weather forecasting! Unlike in the case of appointments to the Hong Kong Mint, twenty years earlier, there seems to be no suggestion of political patronage playing a role in the appointments to positions in the Observatory.7 There is also no indication that Doberck’s Danish nationality was a handicap in his selection, this despite the fact that there had been considerable unease in the Colonial Office at the time with the performance of another foreigner in the Hong Kong government, the German Dr. Ernst Johann Eitel, who, to quote one author, ‘lacked the training or experience to become a regular Government official’;8 and another, ‘was widely distrusted by members of the small European community’.9 One can presume that the nine years he had already resided in the Queen’s first colony was judged enough to sensitize Dr. Doberck to the ways of imperial governance. Not everyone at Hong Kong would see it that way, however, as we shall discover later. His ‘outside’ status was not something he ever strove to deny.

Dr. August William Doberck Background Who was this Dr. Doberck, and how did he end up in Hong Kong? It is likely that he was the first scientific Ph.D. holder, in or out of government, in Hong Kong. Another in physics/astronomy did not appear at the University of Hong Kong until after the Second World War, but his story has not had much telling.10 This is not, however, to say that he was a shrinking violet. He made little effort to avoid controversy, and, to boot, he was a first-class astronomer. His eventual eclipse from the Hong Kong story he would probably attribute to a ‘Jesuit conspiracy’, but that’s a story well in the future. August William Doberck was born in Copenhagen, 12 September 1852, one of four children of Frederik Wilhelm Doberck and Marthe Stine Johansen. Another son, Carl Alfred was to have a distinguished career in the Danish Naval Service, and one of his sisters, Anna, will feature briefly in this story, while of the second sister, Vargur, little is known. The children were introduced to the intellectual life from an early age for their father was an internationally recognized artistic metal smith and art collector and an accomplished artist, as is witnessed by the portrait of the young William shown in an accompanying figure that he painted around 1870 (Fig. 3). The household of the young man was one of culture and learning — the writer Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard as well as many art professors were regular


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visitors. In family folklore the young William is reputed to have shown an early and keen interest in learning and matters scientific,11 but beyond that we know little of his youth.12

Fig. 3. A portrait of the young Doberck painted by his father. By kind permission of Mr. Michael Doberck.

When he was a student in Copenhagen the professor of astronomy in the university there was Heinrich L. d’Arrest, a distinguished scientist who had played an important part in the discovery of the planet Neptune. Two other fellow citizens and near contemporaries of Doberck attained some astronomical fame thanks to the influence of Professor d’Arrest, Carl Frederik Pechüle and,


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more especially, John Louis Emil Dreyer. We have little information on Doberck’s early life, but can assume that it had a lot in common with his fellow student Dreyer, who recounts his enthusiastic visits to d’Arrest’s observatory even before he entered the university.13 He speaks especially of the encouragement he got from the junior astronomer, Professor Schjellerup. D’Arrest’s main interest was in comets, of which he had discovered three, and it would seem that he passed on this interest to the young Doberck, who proceeded to work on comets, both in Copenhagen and at the Pulkovo Observatory at St. Petersburg. He was awarded a doctorate, at the remarkably early age of twenty-one, by the University of Jena, a major centre for optical and astronomical research at the time, in 1873. Although the University of Copenhagen did offer the doctorate degree at the time — Dreyer, under d’Arrest’s supervision, was awarded one in the summer of 1874 — Doberck may have been directed by d’Arrest (who was a German) to register at the University of Jena where a doctorate could be obtained in absentia and at moderate cost, with perhaps better prospects of finding a position at an observatory elsewhere in Europe. It may also have been attractive as an entry to working at the prestigious Pulkovo Observatory, where he spent part of the year 1873–74 as an assistant. If not already so at the time, the Pulkovo was shortly to become a leading astronomical observatory in the world, a Mecca for professional astronomers, but we have little information on his stay there. His main activity at this time seems to have been theoretical rather than observational, and his thesis, Bahnbestimmung der Cometen I 1801, III 1840 und II 1869, was published in Copenhagen in 1873.14 In addition to these three, by the end of 1874 he had also published elements for three other comets. It is not clear that he had any significant hands-on observing experience by the time he sought his first position. Opportunities for professional astronomers were even less common than they are today, so that on graduating he had a formidable search to make if he wished to pursue such a career. Even so, his next step may seem a bit of a surprise. He went to take charge of the Markree Observatory in the west of Ireland (Ireland at that time was still part of the United Kingdom). Twenty years earlier, however, in 1852, Thomas Romney Robinson, director of the Armagh Observatory and a very influential figure in astronomical circles in his time, in connection with finding staff for an observatory in Melbourne wrote: ‘If Britain cannot furnish a qualified person, let us carry out free trade and seek him at Berlin or Poulkova [sic]’.15 This was the approach which presumably led to Doberck taking up the position at Markree — both of his successors in the position were Continentals (Germans). It is interesting to contrast his career with that of his near contemporary, both of them born in Copenhagen in the same year, 1852, the more famous astronomer J. L. E. Dreyer. Both of them moved to Ireland in 1874 and both moved on to ‘tenured’ positions in


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1882–83, Dreyer to the prestigious position as director at Armagh, Doberck to the astronomical backwater of Hong Kong. It is hard to imagine that there was not some rivalry in these parallel careers, but the only evidence we have of their relationship is the remarkable photograph of Doberck posed with the great refractor at Markree, probably taken around 1880, abstracted from an album of Dreyer’s (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. Doberck with the Great Refractor at Markree.

Markree Observatory The Markree Castle Observatory was built by Edward Synge Cooper, a scion of an Anglo-Irish family at Collooney in county Sligo, in 1831.16 It was situated about two hundred metres to the side of his stately home, Markree Castle, and apart from four rooms, contained accommodation for an astronomer and an external, unroofed, enclosure for the telescope. Cooper, who was more enlightened than was common for his class, had his interest in astronomy stoked by visits to the Armagh Observatory when he was a student at the Diocesan School in that city. He later studied at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, but had never


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taken a degree. Remote it may have been, but the Markree Observatory was not unknown among astronomers, professionals as well as amateurs. The main reason for this was the existence there of a 13.3-inch refracting telescope; to quote Doberck himself: ‘in a remote corner of Ireland the largest telescope ever made had been erected by a gentleman [Edward Cooper] then unknown to astronomical fame’.17 The Observatory was described in 1851 as ‘undoubtedly the most richly furnished observatory known’.18 This telescope featured a 13.3inch diameter lens, ground by Cauchoix of Paris, purchased at a cost of £1200 in 1831, and was installed on an equatorial mounting by Grubb of Dublin in 1834. It seems to be a coincidence that this same telescope ended up with the Jesuit fathers at their seminary in Aberdeen, Hong Kong, in the 1930s, for reasons explained later, almost surely unrelated to Doberck. Actually, the most important work done with this telescope had been completed: the discovery of the asteroid 9-Metis, in 1848 and the publication of the ‘Markree Catalogue’ of over 60,000 stars in 1851–56. Cooper was already dead before Doberck got there. Following Cooper’s death in 1863, the Observatory appears to have lain inactive for nine years; in fact ‘all the astronomical instruments [including, presumably, the telescope], transit circle, clocks etc. and library’ were advertised for sale as one lot in the year he died.19 It may be that there was a change of heart, or it may have been a failure to find responses to the asking price of £2500, but either way that dispersal fortunately did not occur, although there are no reports from the Markree for the next nine years. A nephew of the founder, Colonel Edward H. Cooper, succeeded to Markree Castle in 1872 and reactivated the Observatory, although his interests were mainly in meteorology — in his obituary in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society it is described as ‘one of the best meteorological stations in Ireland’.20 Doberck took up his position in Markree on 1 May 1874. As part of his integration into a new academic milieu, he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy in January 1876. His possible alienation from the RIA, as evidenced by his failure to continue reading papers at it (with the one exception from Hong Kong in 1890) may also be reflected by the lack of any mention of him in the archives of the two main astronomical centres in the country at the time, the Dunsink Observatory belonging to Dublin University, and the Armagh Observatory. Although he did read a few papers at the Royal Astronomical Society (London) in the early years, 1874 and 1875, he seems not at that time to have become a fellow of that mainstream organization of which almost all major astronomers in the anglo-centric world became members — if only to get known. He did, however, forward brief annual reports on his observatory every year to the Society, as he did later from the observatory at Hong Kong.21 These were featured in their Monthly Notices. These reports, together with an essay on the Observatory he wrote after he moved to Hong Kong, form the basis of


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almost all we know about his activities at Markree.22 This essay seems to be the only outcome of a project he mentioned in his report for 1881 where he says that ‘a sketch of the History of Astronomy in Ireland is in progress’. Notwithstanding its former fame, the Observatory, as we have seen, had been neglected during the nine years prior to Doberck’s arrival. He found the instruments decaying from neglect, and the building in such a dilapidated condition that the rain penetrated through the roof. The refractor, exposed during forty years in the open air to the winds and rains of Connaught, was in the worst condition. It was not until December 1875 that he could use the large telescope to make observations, but even then he feared that the harmful effects on it of having been exposed to the open air for so many years could never be remedied. In observing double star systems, as distinct from comets on which his earlier work was based, he was, to some extent, following fashion. The study of such systems, which had been a glamourous subject in the first quarter of the century, had fallen by the wayside but was revived by the publication of a new catalogue by the Chicago amateur S. W. Burnham in 1873.23 Apart from double star systems, a topic he was to make very much his own throughout his later career, he would have liked to work on variable stars, but lamented that the sky in this part of Ireland was too seldom and too irregularly clear to allow of the observation of variable stars with any chance of success. Nevertheless, by the time he left Markree he had published almost a hundred reports on his researches. These covered some observations of comets, but mostly observations on double star systems, along with calculations of their orbits. In his obituary notice in 1941, R. G. Aitken wrote that ‘he was favourably known for the great number of double-star orbits he computed’.24 It is worthwhile to enquire into Doberck’s credentials in meteorology, because this was to be the subject of his main responsibilities for many years in his new position. There was a meteorological component to his responsibilities in Sligo, and the Observatory was furnished with a complete set of meteorological instruments and a, presumably not overworked, sunshine recorder was added while he was there. He read, in translation from the Swedish, a paper ‘On Observations with the Psychrometer’, by Dr. E. Rubenson, to the Royal Meteorological Society in January 1877, an account of the instructions issued to the Swedish observers in order to obtain trustworthy results from the psychrometer, or dry and wet bulb hygrometer (this was a subject he returned to several times, including in retirement).25 His involvement in meteorology seems to have been limited to the collection of data twice a day in conformity with the regulations of the Meteorological Office, but this became routine and hardly distracted him from full-time engagement with topics astronomical. He had no experience in weather forecasting. In his report for the year 1875


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he relates how he had the assistance of his sister Anna for the meteorological measurements (she would only have been about sixteen or seventeen at the time), although this seems only to have lasted for a year or so. In the Royal Society report for the year she is listed as the observer for Colonel Cooper.26 Her presence there is also noted in an account written shortly after her departure by a member of the Catholic clergy and contemporary local historian, Archdeacon Timothy O’Rorke, who, in the flowery style of the day, wrote of ‘his [William’s] accomplished sister’, and described them as ‘a brother and sister that remind one forcibly, by their common love of science and their mutual affection, of William and Caroline Herschel’ and that they ‘are not only maintaining, but extending daily the fame and usefulness of Mr Cooper’s great foundation’. Miss Doberck, he claimed, was at the time ‘elaborating, on the continent, an “Essay on the Climate of Ireland”’.27 It seems unlikely that she published any such account, for her brother would surely have mentioned it when he wrote, fifteen years later, to support her application for the position of meteorological assistant at the Hong Kong Observatory, a position to which, as we will see, she was appointed and would hold for twenty-five years. He had also, for several years, assistance in his meteorological observations from his housekeeper at Markree, of whom more anon. Of his social life in Ireland we have little information. Obviously from the occurrence of the photograph in Dreyer’s album we know that Dreyer visited him at Markree, and he did some observing at Dunsink with Ball, the astronomer royal for Ireland.28 Dr. Doberck’s true interests always lay with astronomy, but for several years in his new position in Hong Kong he would be too preoccupied with meteorology, and managerial concerns in the new institution, to pursue his interests in the subject.

Departure from Markree Why did Dr. Doberck leave Markree? Not obviously for the financial inducement, because less than two years into his new position at Hong Kong, if we are to believe him in a letter to the colonial secretary, he was complaining: ‘I should have been materially better off had I not resigned my position in Ireland’.29 He gave no indication of discontent in his last report to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1882, where he wrote at length about the many projects he had on the drawing board. He mentioned plans for a more comprehensive monitoring of the meteorological data, ‘as soon as the desired sum of money is placed at [my] disposal’. New ‘first-class’ magnetic instruments had been added to the Observatory during the year, as had a ‘Rain-band Spectroscope’ and a ‘Browning’s Solar eyepiece’ for the telescope. He had started to experiment with


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photography, and a photographic eyepiece for the large refractor was on order. We have no relics of his correspondence, so we can only ask why? In the nine years he was there he restored the Observatory to something like its former glory, but it was to be a brief revival. His successor as director, a German, Albert Marth was fifty-five when he took up the post, and a well-respected astronomer.30 However he seems to have made no use of the astronomical instruments during his fourteen years there (spending his efforts on calculating ephemerides) and after his death in 1897 all astronomical work ceased and it functioned purely as a meteorological observatory. Having journeyed from St. Petersburg to Sligo, perhaps it was a renewed wanderlust that led Dr. Doberck to depart for the Orient — or it may have been an affaire de coeur.

Preparing for a New Career The Director’s Duties The job specification for the director at the Hong Kong Observatory was somewhat general, but on any reading it could not be construed as including a responsibility for weather forecasting. This omission was not simply an oversight, and can be appreciated by looking at the developments in meteorology in Great Britain over the previous twenty years. A schism had arisen in the subject that distinguished between ‘physical meteorology’, which sought rigorously to establish the physical laws underlying the subject, and ‘climatic meteorology’ encompassing those aspects of the subject which related to human interests.31 The history of weather forecasting, belonging to the latter category, had been a chequered one, and the exercise had been set in abeyance by the Meteorological Office in Great Britain for a number of years, but by the time of Doberck’s appointment forecasting had again been adopted practice. The director of that office, Robert Scott, however, was but a cautious advocate of prognostication, and seeing the very limited number of reporting stations in the region of Hong Kong would almost surely have been opposed to such an element being included in the charge on the new director. Thus, Doberck, as was the case with everyone else involved in the exercise, saw the position as akin to positions in other observatories in the colonies, Markree, Madras, Melbourne etc., where only systematic monitoring of meteorological parameters was carried out with a view to their scientific evaluation at a later date. But it wasn’t! Apart from the special meteorological conditions on the South China Coast, Hong Kong, its very raison d’être entirely reliant on shippings was uniquely in need of a good weather forecasting system. Manila and Shanghai rather than Madras and


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Sydney were the blueprints for the post, but they, of course, were not in the ambit of the Meteorological Office or of the Royal Society. One of the triggering events for the idea of an observatory, on the Hong Kong side, the storm of 1874 was completely lost sight of, and the later Royal Society concerns with pure scientific monitoring took over as the template for the new institution. This conflict between the utilitarian requirements of the Colony and the opinion of scientific authority ‘at home’ would frequently be dwelt upon in the years ahead. And it was a conflict that, in another guise, already existed at Hong Kong, with botany and horticulture taking the roles of physical and climatic meteorology. The harassed individual here was Charles Ford, from 1871 the superintendent of the Hong Kong Botanical Garden. His hopes of carrying out research in botany, an activity that was also desired by his scientific overlords at the Kew Gardens, were frustrated by the amount of time he had to spend on planting trees and growing flowers in a pleasure garden, something about which he often complained.32 The view in government circles was that the Colony would not profit from any such pure science, even if it would contribute more generally to economic botany. In the words of one author, ‘the Gardens were simply a “public recreational ground” where Western residents could stroll around after a day’s work and where concerts could be performed in summer’.33 From this distance in time, it is puzzling that such a narrowly focused scenario surrounded the setting up of the Observatory. At that time, India could be described as a colonial meteorological laboratory, but this fact seems to have played no role in the setting up of the Hong Kong Observatory. It is true that in scale, and resources, the observing base in India was in no way comparable, and Blanford, the director there, was largely independent of interference from the Royal Society or the astronomer royal, and so India was not invoked in the plans for Hong Kong. But it was a fact that Indian observers were major contributors to the study of typhoons. As early as 1848 Captain Henry Piddington, who was engaged by the Calcutta Museum, based on his study of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, published his Sailor’s Horn-Book for the Law of Storms. This was the earliest treatise for sailors explaining how to manage their ships in such storms and for many years was the standard reference manual for the subject. So it does not seem that a visit by the director to one or two of the Indian observatories on his journey east would have been simply a boondoggle, but such an opportunity for his early familiarization with Asian meteorology seems never to have been contemplated. In his first annual report to the Hong Kong government, Doberck would complain about the secretary to the Meteorological Office supplying him with waxed paper, not aware that ‘argento-bromide paper had for years been successfully adopted in India’. This failure to correlate plans for a new observatory in Hong Kong with major meteorological activities in other parts


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of the Empire is, presumably, a reflection of the minimal interaction existing between the India Office and the Colonial Office. Hong Kong, however, was not entirely isolated, certainly much less so than was Mauritius, and did have useful observational support from neighbouring stations. The fact, however, is that these contributions were either in the hands of the Chinese Customs Service, or in the hands of the Jesuits, parts of a jigsaw which in the eyes of the Colonial Office, and even the Royal Society, simply did not ‘fit in’, even though, as we have noted, both Faura at Manila and Dechevrens at Shanghai had ‘served time’ at Stonyhurst, and were fully familiar with the particular meteorological culture.

A First Assistant On appointment, Dr. Doberck was sent a copy of Mr. Price’s report on an observatory (at least as far as it concerned staffing), and Colonel Palmer’s report on his determination of the latitude at Hong Kong but not, understandably, Palmer’s more extravagant proposals for an observatory, and he was requested to suggest ideas on filling the post of his assistant at the Observatory (at a salary of $1200 per year plus housing). In his reply he opined (expanding on the suggestions in Price’s report) that a candidate should hold a first class school certificate, have an ability to calculate quickly and with a knowledge of logarithms, know telegraphy and preferably understand photography, and that he should be subject to at least three months’ training at the Kew and Greenwich Observatories before departure for the East.34 He also pointed out that one of the duties involved was to ‘help the Government Astronomer in his calculations’. The War Office was canvassed for an NCO, at the quoted salary, but replied that no officer could be spared. Around the same time, on 22 February, Doberck wrote to the Colonial Office that he had had a letter from a Mr. F. G. Figg, magnetic assistant at Kew, whose qualifications he thought appropriate: ‘thoroughly trained and in every respect suitable [as] an assistant’. Frederic George Figg somehow came to know about a possible position in Hong Kong and wrote to Doberck. He volunteered little information beyond his age, twenty-seven, and that he was ‘a member of the Protestant church’, and enclosed a testimonial from the superintendent of the Kew Observatory, G. M. Whipple. In a glowing reference Whipple wrote, lauding all the roles Figg had played in observations and instrument maintenance under his supervision, especially his competence in photographic registration, his considerable knowledge of mechanical and electrical appliances, his dedicated attention to duty, and his gentlemanly conduct, and that it was only the lack of opportunities for advancement for such a deserving candidate that led him to make the recommendation.35


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Frederic George was born at Petersham in Surrey on 10 February 1856, one of the ten children of William Figg, a builder, and his wife Ester, née Kirkman. He would turn out to be by far the most successful of all his numerous siblings, who, typically in later life, are listed as dressmaker, carpenter or undertaker. Figg, at the age of seventeen, had joined the Kew Observatory in 1872 and worked initially for two years in the meteorological section, where he became familiar with data gathering and instrument maintenance. From 1875 he seems to have been set to making only magnetic measurements, and from 1877 was the person responsible for all magnetic observations and their reduction, and from 1880 is listed as the magnetic observer at Kew. He had also been in charge of the time-keepers for about two years, observing the necessary transits. He thus had eleven years’ experience of time-keeping, meteorology and magnetic measurements, qualifications which could hardly be bettered by any noncommissioned officer. Beyond this, however, we know almost nothing about Mr. Figg. The Colonial Office, when the secretary of state for war failed to locate a suitable candidate among the Royal Engineers, forwarded the nomination to the Royal Society Committee, who gave it their approval, and Figg accepted the appointment.36 Though a very retiring individual, Mr. Figg turned out to be a very successful choice, and one of the very few people who, over the years, established a modus operandi with Dr. Doberck. Over the next quarter century of the Doberck saga in Hong Kong no one comes out of it with greater credit than does Frederic Figg.

An Officer of the 152nd Rank In addition to providing a time service, the new observatory was charged with making meteorological and magnetic observations, but with no mention, as we have seen, of weather forecasting. There is no question as to Doberck’s qualifications in respect of the primary duty, accurate time-keeping, assigned to his new position, for he was an accomplished astronomer with at least ninety-eight publications to his name by the time he left Ireland. Of those publications, however, only one could be related to meteorology, and even then rather tenuously — a paper on the possible relation of sun-spots to rainfall, (see Appendix D). Meteorological parameters were long monitored at the Markree Observatory. Indeed, it was when he was in charge there that the lowest temperature ever recorded in Ireland, -19.1oC, was recorded on 16 January 1881. Although he was to do some analysis of the accumulated meteorological data after his arrival in Hong Kong, weather forecasting was not a subject very familiar to him. However, according to a letter he wrote after he got to Hong Kong, he had been assisted at Markree for many years by a Mrs. Eliza de Salles


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as a meteorological observer, and that ‘she exhibited a talent for local weather forecasting’.37 Such ‘talents’ are not rare in rural Ireland, but it was an aspect of his professionalism he presumably kept quiet about when he came up for interview for the Hong Kong post, although he would have cause to bring it up again at a later date. He also had experience in measuring the geomagnetic field in conformity with the standards of London authorities. It became clear very early on that Dr. Doberck’s view of his new position, which was essentially head of a department in the Civil Service, was radically different from what was expected in such an appointee. Even before he had taken up his position there was the first indication of what Dyson calls ‘Doberck’s generally irreverent attitude to the accepted formalities of the colonial service’, initially excused by ‘as Mr. Doberck is a foreigner’.38 Apparently, shortly after accepting his appointment, he visited London and saw Figg (they are unlikely to have known each other before), for a Colonial Office minute by R. H. Meade in early February 1883 notes: I happened to meet Mr Scott [Robert H. Scott F.R.S., Sec. Met. Office] at the Atheneum yesterday … [who] mentioned also that Dr Doberck had given Mr Figg to understand that he (Dr Doberck) had the appointment to dispose of and offered it to him. Mr Scott, however, warned Mr Figg against taking it as a genuine offer and no harm was done.39

One suspects that Doberck did not know anything about a proposal circulating at the time to make himself subordinate to the harbour master in Hong Kong — prior to the setting up of the Observatory meteorological data were collected by the Harbour Department and published in the Gazette. This proposal was abandoned: because this arrangement would probably lead to friction and trouble. Dr Doberck is said to be a good astronomer and perfectly honest in the discharge of his duties and I should prefer leaving matters alone now, merely giving Sir J Bowen [governor of Hong Kong] a private hint what to guard against.40

Such a decision was very wise for the proposal surely would have led to friction, but the appreciation which accompanied it was short-lived. Within a month we have a Colonial Office minute: ‘this gentleman is likely to give trouble’. The context of this aggravation was some letters he wrote from Marley’s Hotel in Trafalgar Square on 18 and 19 April, seeking clarification on compensation if his residence was not ready when he got to Hong Kong, on his official rank and uniform there, on how his annual report would be published, and with suggestions for future expansion of the Observatory.41 A factor which probably contributed to a chilly reception for this letter at the Colonial Office was the fact that he informed them that he knew the building of his residence was unlikely


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to be completed by the time he got there and that the cost of accommodation in Hong Kong was not cheap, facts he learned from none other than Sir John Pope Hennessy, with whom he had had an interview — Sir George F. Bowen was, by this time, in Hong Kong as Hennessy’s replacement. Apart from employing his widely acknowledged charm, we can assume that Pope Hennessy informed the new director of something of the background to the Observatory, and Palmer’s role in its gestation. Doberck requested an allowance of not less than $60 per month for his accommodation requirements. He was told that this could only be decided in Hong Kong after his arrival there. He also thought clarification of his official rank was important because: in this country the precedence of scientific men is to a great extent founded upon the relative merit of their publications, I am informed, that scientific officials, when proceeding to the colonies, find it adviceable [sic] to have their official rank strictly defined. It would be very likely impossible for His Excellency the Governor of Hong Kong to decide concerning my official rank upon my arrival at the Colony, where I am not personally known, whereas his Lordship could immediately decide this point, as I am known for nine years in the United Kingdom. As chief of an important department I expect to be placed on equality with a Surveyor General, who is not a member of the Council.42

But of course his future nemesis, John M. Price the surveyor general, was a member of both councils. He also wished, ‘subject to the sanction of Her Majesty’, to be permitted to wear the uniform of a colonial civil servant of the fourth class. It is clear that nobody at the Colonial Office wanted to deal with these distractions, it being pointed out that colonial regulations did not lay down the precedence of scientific men, and with one official minuting: ‘In England he would be in the one hundred and fifty second rank, immediately below subaltern officers in the army, and immediately above yeomen, tradesmen, artificers and labourers’, a rather cruel assessment of the man who saw himself as on a par with the surveyor general.43 On his future annual reports, he wanted assurance that his annual report would be presented in print to the governor of Hong Kong, adding that according to Sir John Pope Hennessy this course was not unusual. He wished it to resemble other reports submitted to the Royal Astronomical Society and other learned institutions. A response came from the Colonial Office to the effect that ‘you will rank as the Head of a separate, and important Department. … Lord Derby trusts that you quite clearly understand that, as an officer of the Government of Hong Kong … you will be subordinate to the Governor and Colonial Secretary and that all your reports and recommendations must pass through the usual official channels’.44 All other decisions were to be left to the governor in Hong Kong.


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It is hard to imagine that in his conversations with former Governor Pope Hennessy some discussion of Palmer’s proposals did not arise and, indeed, suggestions Doberck made for improvements in the project, including the construction of an underground magnetic observatory manned by a second assistant, very much echoed Palmer’s ideas. This was one of several proposals he made for an extension of the Observatory in his letters of 18 and 19 April 1883.45 These letters, as we have noted, were received very coolly in the Colonial Office, with one minute reading: ‘the sooner this apparently unpleasant man goes out the better … he must be prepared to be in the same subordinate position to the Governor as any other officer’.46 One official described them as ‘an attempt on Dr. Doberck’s part to upset an arrangement come to after much consideration by Mr. Price and the Astronomer Royal to reduce the cost and the equipment of the Observatory within reasonable bounds’, as indeed, under the tutelage of Pope Hennessy they may very well have been intended.47 In later communications related to the development of the Observatory, Doberck would always cite Palmer’s report as the basis for action, and succeeded in tenuring a second assistant, even though this position had been dropped by Price in the adopted scheme. His salary, a topic he frequently kept in mind, of $2400 per annum started from 2 March 1883, from which date he spent three months at the Greenwich and Kew Observatories for familiarization purposes, and the checking of instruments being assembled for his new observatory. But he was denied shipping for more books than he wished for the Observatory — he still sent two cases of books and journals, most of them in German — and passage for a servant. The latter was refused with the information that ‘passage only provided for wives and children’. He set off for Hong Kong on the steamer Bengloe on 10 June 1883 from London, accompanied by his assistant Figg, both unmarried. It is of interest to note that they and other officer staff of the Observatory were appointed on pensionable terms without qualification, in contrast to the earlier appointments to the ill-fated Hong Kong Mint, where retirement clauses subject to the success of the operation were always included in the contracts.48 No provision for the possible failure of the new observatory was made but in fact, as we shall see, the survival of the Observatory at later times was not at all assured.

Getting Started The director of the new Hong Kong Observatory and his first assistant arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday 28 July 1883, after an eight-week journey via the Suez Canal and Singapore, accompanied by the bulk of the instruments to be installed.49 Dr. Doberck’s arrival was noted in the Hong Kong Telegraph for that day, the report reading: ‘per Bengloe, str., from


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London, &c. — Mrs. Saller, Dr. Doberck, Messrs. Fogg and Hancock, and 250 Chinese’. ‘Fogg’ is surely Figg, and Mr. Hancock and the ‘250 Chinese’ are of no further interest to us here, but the cavalier attitude to spelling means there is little doubt but that the lady passenger ‘Mrs. Saller’ (or according to the Daily Press, ‘Mrs. Sallus’) was one Mrs. Eliza de Salles — someone we have met briefly before at Markree, and who will enter our story again. It is probable that the two men, on arrival, would have picked up the local papers of the day. There was seldom much news in these at the time, such as there was mostly related to cases in the police court, or sporting results. A perusal of the Daily Press on that day would have found an editorial rant, though Pope Hennessy was already fifteen months departed from the Colony: It is just possible, also, that he will avoid his past blunders and endeavour to make a different reputation in his new sphere of action. … It is, however, the nature of the man to involve himself in disputes with those around him, and his craving for notoriety still further impels him in the same direction. Having got rid of him here, however, we can only hope that the Mauritians may have a pleasanter experience of Sir John Pope Hennessy.

Elsewhere, a correspondent writing on the typhoon season noted that: ‘The Manila telegrams are of great value and I trust that they may long convey a warning’. The local papers had also, since May 1876, been carrying nearly every day a ‘China Coast Meteorological Register’ reporting the previous day’s local data as well as that from Shanghai, Xiamen and Manila, and they also carried a record of pressure and temperature measured at Falconers in Queen’s Road at 9 a.m., 1 and 4 p.m. From the register for the previous day the newly arrived meteorologists will have seen that there had been no messages from Xiamen or Shanghai. Doberck’s arrival, and the potential it offered, was generally welcomed by the local press. The China Mail within two days of his arrival spoke positively of his coming, anticipating that he would be sent to ‘Manila and Shanghai and other places on the coast of China, to inspect the observatories there, and to put himself in communication with the Directors of those institutions … with the object of eventually furnishing trustworthy weather forecasts’.50 The editor noted that he was a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and other learned societies, and had for many years been director of the astronomical, meteorological and magnetic observatory at Markree, Ireland.51 He also pointed out how ‘the name of the present Government Astronomer has frequently appeared in Nature in connection with his double star investigations’ and, observing how his calculations had been confirmed by other European astronomers, said that he ‘had no doubt that his forecasts of storms and tempests here will be as trustworthy as his astronomical predictions’.52 A later edition carried a


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detailed description from the director of his Observatory, and its equipment, noting that ‘the situation of the Observatory is rather secluded. It is surrounded by villas and summer-residences’ and how the library was housed in ‘glazed teak-wood book-cases to protect the books from insects in the summer’. He also acknowledged receipt of extensive donations from scientific institutions in all parts of the world.53 This harmonious relationship with the local press, especially the Mail, would be of rather short duration. At the time he arrived, the construction of the Observatory buildings was not yet complete, and his reports are from the Hong Kong Hotel. He reported with approval the site of the new observatory. Two mounds, about three hundred feet apart on Mount Elgin, a hundred feet above sea level, in a ‘rural setting’ according to Price, had been levelled, originally by Governor Hercules Robinson who planned to build a residence on one and government offices on the other. That plan fell through, but the surveyor general in 1876 earmarked the site for a future observatory, and in his words, ‘since then all applications from private purchasers for the auction sale of this much coveted piece of land have in consequence been refused’.54 Within four weeks of taking up his position Doberck submitted his first report to the harbour master. It concerned the closing of the monitoring station at the Lock Hospital and future meteorological observations at locations away from the Observatory, and the accuracy with which they should be made. It was sent, somewhat unnecessarily, to London. There it was received by the Colonial Office with a minute: ‘I believe that in the future the Hong Kong Observatory will very much more than pay its expenses in the property which will be saved … and if Dr Doberck does not quarrel with everyone in Hong Kong I think he will do a very good work there’. To this, a further minute was added, by R. Meade: ‘I agree though the “if” is a large one’.55 Confirmation of Mr. Meade’s suspicions was not long in coming.


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4 Government Astronomer or ‘Merely a Meteorological Observer’ The labours of Doberck deserve notice, as we owe to this indefatigable astronomer the greater part of our knowledge of the binary-star orbits. Sir Robert Ball in Nature, 18861 Dr Doberck appears to have a competent knowledge of his work which is that merely of a Meteorological Observer. Governor Bowen to the Colonial Office, 18832

The Local Situation That the new observatory in Hong Kong was seen as a lynch-pin in a network of observatories is evident from several sources. Col. Palmer, in his 1881 proposals for an observatory, noted the enthusiasm of the director of the Manila Observatory, Fr. Faura, for such a complimentary station, and commented on how a proposed series of meteorological stations under the Chinese Maritime Customs ‘working in cooperation with the larger establishments in Japan, Shanghai, Manila and Hong Kong, would help vastly towards the achievement of those results which the meteorologists of the world so much desire’. By 1883 the observatory situation in the Orient was as follows: private Jesuit observatories at Manila and Shanghai, a fledgling Japanese observatory at Tokyo, part-time observers at the treaty ports (reporting to Shanghai) and the soon to-be-opened observatory at Hong Kong. By contrast, in British India (including Burma and Nepal) there were 125 observing stations in operation at that time, so the potential which the new director might embrace in the study of meteorology can be readily


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appreciated. That that potential was not to be realized can be seen to have two major explanations: the director’s less than total commitment to the subject and, from day one, his adversarial attitude to the other players on the field. As we have seen, the director of the observatory at Shanghai, Dechevrens, proposed a plan of collaboration of all the meteorological stations in China, centred on Zikawei. Doberck, for his part suggested something similar, but to be centred on Hong Kong. As we will see, the opposite of collaboration was to result. What kind of person was expected in the occupancy of this new government position? The required level of competence in the physical sciences in government heretofore was not very high, such persons being almost exclusively practically minded, engineering-directed — people like the harbour master or the surveyor general. The exceptions were the staff of the short-lived, and spectacularly unsuccessful, Mint (1866–68), in particular its master, William Kinder, and his assayer, Charles Tookey, a fellow of the Institute of Chemistry.3 The competence and dedication of staff in the Harbour Master’s Office, and the Surveyor General’s Office, at least in maintaining meteorological records, were admirable, even if the accuracy of the measurements would later be called into question. Satisfaction with the staff at the Mint, however, especially with its master, William Kinder, had been far from complete. This was to set up an animosity between the governor of the day and Kinder which, in a way but for different reasons, would be reflected in Doberck’s future relations twenty years later with several governors, although the earlier conflict was exhibited in much more diplomatic exchanges than would characterize those involving the director. Writing to London a month before the scheduled opening of the Mint, the governor, Richard Graves Mac Donnell — the establishment of a mint had been the idea of his predecessor Sir Hercules Robinson — commented: ‘I myself have formed an unfavourable judgment of the general competency of the Mint staff to conduct successfully the difficult operation of opening a new Mint in a strange country, … I form that opinion chiefly from the fact of few of the numerous difficulties now urged as excuses having been foreseen. … I am less sanguine as to the prospects of the Mint — especially as its expenses are daily increasing’.4 Such incompetence could not be laid at the feet of the founding director of the Observatory, and the question of difficult instrumentation did not arise. He was in a different category, certainly in his own eyes. He had a doctorate when such was uncommon, and espoused a rigorous approach to scientific questions, characterized above all by a sensitivity to the uncertainties in measurement, and an emphasis on the rigour of calibration that this implied. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society (London) in April 1883, an honour he held for ten years, eventually surrendering it by resigning at the end of 1893. Even so, we still find a governor writing to the Colonial Office: ‘my public duty compels me to state that all competent judges


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regard Dr Doberck as an unfortunate selection on the part of the Colonial Office in London’.5 Unfortunately, most of the problems the director would encounter in his new position were not of a purely scientific kind, and his own approach to coping with them would give rise to much frustration. The governor most responsible for the setting up of the Observatory, Sir John Pope Hennessy, had moved on, and the new governor, Sir George F. Bowen, had only been in station about three months when Doberck and Figg arrived. Nevertheless he clearly saw the priorities and quickly communicated with the director on future developments.

Sowing the Seeds of Dissention It is worthwhile to look at the early days of Doberck’s stewardship in detail because they throw light on major conflicts that would arise later. On 24 July 1883, a few days before Doberck’s arrival, J. M. Price wrote a memo to the colonial secretary, reflecting the views he had expressed earlier on the proposed coordination scheme at Shanghai, and pointed out: ‘[the benefits] of the new Meteorological Observatory at Hong Kong will mainly depend upon the successful relations which the Director, Dr Doberck, may be able to establish with other centres of meteorological observation along the coast of China and the Philippine Islands’ and recommended that: pending the completion of the Observatory buildings at Kowloon this gentleman be commissioned to proceed to the Zi Ka Wei Observatory at Shanghai for the purpose of arranging with Mr Dechevrens its eminent Director a common basis of observation and correspondence and that similar negociations should be entered into by Dr Doberck ... with the Head of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs at Swatow, Amoy and Foochow, and last, not least, that upon his return from Shanghai Dr Doberck repair to Manila for the purpose of establishing relations with the Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory there. For the issue of daily weather intelligence that shall be trustworthy it is essential that in addition to his own local observations at Kowloon, Dr Doberck should possess the simultaneous observations of other observatories and of other scientific individuals engaged in meteorological work over as wide a region of the China Sea as may be accessible to him by telegraph. … I deem it of great importance to Hong Kong that Dr Doberck should avail himself of [the opportunity] to undertake the two journeys referred to.6


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Within weeks of Doberck’s arrival, the colonial secretary wrote to him in this context, using almost word for word Price’s text.7 This was followed three weeks later by another message: ‘You will proceed in the first instance to Shanghai and place yourself in communication with Pere Dechevrens, with whom it is possible you will hereafter frequently correspond’ and Price himself offered him an introduction to Fr. Dechevrens whom he knew slightly.8 He did more or less as he was instructed and wrote a report for the governor.9 He visited seven ports (Swatow, Amoy, Takow, Shanghai, Chinkiang, Kiukiang and Hankow) and five lighthouses (Ockseu, Turnabout, Middle Dog, South Cape and Fisher Island) operated by the Imperial Maritime Customs, venturing as far north as Hankow on the mainland and to the southern tip of Taiwan, including the meteorologically important station at South Cape (Koshun). While at Amoy he unpacked the sixteen crates of equipment stored there after Hart’s abortive effort some years before, checked their operation and arranged for them to be distributed to stations up and down the coast. Fr. Dechevrens presumed on the integrity of data coming from the Customs stations, without himself having hands-on experience of their operations; some credit must go to Doberck for organizing these aspects. In the end, he got little thanks for this, and the results of his journey were hardly what were intended in the instructions given him. In fact, no mention of either Manila or Zikawei (or Fr. Dechevrens) appears in his account of the trip, although we do know that he went to Shanghai, as he admits elsewhere that ‘the Jesuit Fathers have a first class magnetic observatory’.10 However, contrary to the governor’s instructions, he appears not to have visited the Philippines at all. It was even then obvious that by far the most relevant information for the forecasting of typhoons likely to affect Hong Kong would come from stations in the Philippines. He did write, ‘at the instructions of the Governor’, to the director at Manila asking him to forward copies of their publications to the Hong Kong Observatory. Fr. Faura replied cordially, at the same time inviting Doberck to visit Manila. In his reply, Doberck explained that this was not possible as the governor would not permit him to leave as his presence in the Colony was deemed very necessary.11 It is hard for us to see any such pressing necessity, and we have no other evidence of an embargo on his travels. Considering the importance of Manila and the fact that he had been instructed to go there in the first place, some other light must be cast on his decision. With hindsight, it is clear that at this early stage he snubbed the two Jesuit observatories, and that the seeds of future conflict were already sown in this early voyage, if not earlier and elsewhere. An editorial in the Hong Kong Telegraph, sixteen years later, would claim that ‘Dr Doberck from the first day of his arrival in Hong Kong did all he could, conversationally and otherwise, to depreciate the work of the Jesuits’.12


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His slighting of Dechevrens, in part at least, arose from his desire to be ‘top-dog’ in China Coast meteorology. Unsuccessful in this ambition for now, he would return to the challenge later. In his report he reveals his ambitions for managing a China Coast Meteorological Service, notes the governor’s agreement to his acting as ‘Meteorological Reporter to the Imperial Maritime Customs of China’, but knows that, to some extent, he has been upstaged by Dechevrens. Doberck’s exploratory report, dated 8 November, was preceded by Dechrevens’s 15 September director’s first annual report for the Meteorological Service for the China Coast, reproduced in the local papers in October, to which, of course, Doberck makes no reference.13 Not only does he not mention the Meteorological Service at Shanghai, he explicitly states that: ‘at present no meteorological service appears to exist in China. Some instruments are read in the Treaty Ports … but no particular system is followed. The instruments are generally useless’. In a public document, one can only imagine Dechevrens’s reaction to this. Dechevrens, who had published a sixty-seven-page pamphlet on Instructions in the Use of Meteorological Instruments for Observers in China, was also not amused by Doberck’s suggestion that he should follow his draft instructions for meteorological observations along the China Coast. Doberck at this stage had yet to acquire any public credentials as a meteorologist. He presumes on Sir Robert Hart’s patronage in seven of the paragraphs in his report, invoking the ‘intention of Sir Robert Hart [inspector general of the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs] that the meteorological registers in China shall be kept according to a uniform system’, and frequently invokes the inspector general’s assumed support for his endeavour. Hart, as we shall see, was having none of it. Doberck drew up a list of thirty-five coastal and inland sites where he hoped meteorological data would be monitored, and expressed a hope that all the data from the different stations in China would be forwarded to him at Hong Kong for reduction, correction and commentary, and that the results would be periodically published under the aegis of the inspector general of the Imperial Maritime Customs at Shanghai, ‘with a preface by myself embodying the results of my discussion of the observations’. To this purpose he seems to have persuaded the governor to write to Sir Robert Hart offering assistance in collating the data from the treaty ports and lighthouses, but all he can report is Hart’s agreement to the forwarding of all meteorological observations made along the coast to him in Hong Kong, and it is clear that the collaboration was not as enthusiastic as he makes out — and his project did not materialize. It would be interesting to know to what extent Hart had been in contact with Dechevrens on these matters. Sir Robert Hart, notwithstanding his Ulster Unionist background, is known to have been appreciative of the efforts of the Jesuits at Shanghai and always kept his distance,


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formally at least, from Colonial Office affairs. Hart instructed his staff at the treaty ports to: confer with Dr Doberck and ascertain what his wishes are. Seeing that the Customs intention to organise a Coast Meteorological Service has been interfered with by various matters, it will be necessary for you to report to me and await further orders before undertaking or promising any cooperation beyond what has been authorised in the case of the Sicawei Observatory.14

And in a letter from Hart’s chief secretary, acknowledging the government astronomer’s offer of assistance after he returned from his tour of monitoring stations, we find: although some steps towards the establishment of a meteorological service were taken over ten years ago, it is not intended to proceed with the further or full development of the scheme at present. If it would be of any value to the Hong Kong Observatory to be supplied with duplicates of such observations as are now periodically sent to the Observatory at Sicawei, directions to that effect will be given — should you so desire: meanwhile in declining it I am to thank you for your obliging offer of assistance.15

In diplomatic language of the times, it was decidedly a cold shoulder. It is probable that Hart saw it as inappropriate for Chinese Customs affairs to be managed by the colonial power. The Hong Kong Telegraph reported several years later that Dr. Doberck wrote to Hart in 1891 asking the inspector general to forbid all communication of meteorological observations from Chinese ports to Manila except through him. But, according to the paper, ‘Sir Robert Hart took no notice … beyond handing a copy of it to the late Director of the Manila Observatory’.16 Even so, the Customs authorities were even-handed in distributing their monitored data; every port that was in telegraphic contact with Hong Kong and Zikawei sent data daily, very important input for both observatories in preparing their meteorological registers. And the Customs at Shanghai would later publish Doberck’s notes. A later, but overlapping, head of the Imperial Customs’ Marine Department, William Ferdinand Tyler, writes of their meteorological work in conjunction with the Zikawei Observatory, which, he asserted ‘became an affair of Far Eastern international importance’, and speaks of Zikawei’s director Fr. Froc in glowing terms, but with no mention at all of Doberck or the Hong Kong Observatory.17 The first overt expression of his antagonism towards the Manila Observatory appears in July 1884, when Doberck requested the harbour master to cease circulating storm warning notices issued by the Manila Observatory to the press in Hong Kong. Further evidence of distrust of Manila can be found in his report


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for 1884, where he reports the arrival of data from the English Cable Station at Bolinao (in Northern Luzon) and comments that ‘the importance of [such] information from a gentleman of scientific training during the coming typhoon season cannot be overestimated’. Again in his report for 1885 he writes: ‘the labour of following typhoons in their transit across these islands [Philippines] is thrown upon this Observatory, and the work has to be done on insufficient data’. He acknowledged receiving data from the Manila Observatory twice a day, as well as from Bolinao, but complained that Manila did not publish a meteorological register or any data useful for the study of typhoons. He did later acknowledge the contribution of Fr. Faura, the director of the Manila Observatory, in constructing some storm tracks in his study of the typhoons of 1886 and 1887, and hosted the reverend director on his visit to Hong Kong in 1888. According to Saderra Masó, in his history of the Manila Observatory, Fr. Faura ceased sending his summaries of typhoons to the Observatory because Doberck had been using them without acknowledgement in his reports, and crediting all the data to the telegraph station at Bolinao.18

Adaptation to Colonial Service: Fitting In Within a year of his arrival, by enactment of the Legislative Council, Doberck became a naturalized British subject ‘while in this Colony, and shall enjoy within this Colony, but not elsewhere, all the rights’.19 This restriction was a consequence of the fact that the relevant legislation was a local Hong Kong ordinance. It was ratified in 1880 at the behest of Pope Hennessy, in part as a component of his project to bring Chinese into things and in part to solve some immediate personnel problems. The governor had been embarrassed in 1879 when he appointed one J. A. da Carvalho as acting colonial treasurer with a seat on the Legislative Council, an appointment that had to be revoked because, to quote Eitel: ‘it was found that Mr. Carvalho, being an alien, could not take the oath of allegiance’.20 There is some irony in this account, for the first person to be naturalized under the provision was none other than Dr. Eitel himself. In this Doberck joined a small number of Chinese and other Europeans (mainly Portuguese). This only emphasizes that he was an ‘outsider’ in the government hierarchy, and like the few outsiders who had preceded him — the likes of Eitel, and, at a different remove, the Irish Catholic, John Pope Hennessy — it is not irrelevant to subsequent events. He was a dynamic director, and readily sacrificed the time he would have liked to devote to astronomy to the many other concerns relevant to the evolution of the Observatory, not only as a provider of time services, but also to meteorological services, especially in regard to the properties of typhoons, and in predicting their occurrence.


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If his professional role as director was not to be without controversy, his adaptation to the formalities of colonial life was hardly less conventional. His earliest brush with authority in Hong Kong (who appear to have overlooked his failure to follow instructions to visit Manila) occurred in mid-November, four months after his arrival. He thought it was time to employ a second assistant and wrote to the governor to that effect, even going so far as to suggest someone he thought a very qualified candidate, none other than his housekeeper (as she had also been during his Markree days), Mrs. Eliza de Salles, the female passenger who arrived with him on the S. S. Bengloe, noted earlier. He pointed out her qualifications, that, when she was at Markree, her ‘observations [had been] printed at the expense of the British Government’ and that ‘she had considerable experience in handling delicate instruments’ and that ‘without expense to the Government for about four months’ she had been assisting him in his observations.21 He surprisingly omitted the opinion of Robert Scott, the secretary of the Royal Meteorological Society, who had written earlier in the year, ‘your servant Mrs. Salles has acted as your meteorological observer, from the year 1877, ever since your sister left Markree. We have always found her most careful and attentive’.22 Within a week he had a reply from the acting colonial secretary, Frederick Stewart, saying that the Executive Council had advised against that possible appointment, but without further elaboration. But of the matter elsewhere, there was much elaboration, notably in a letter from the governor giving details of the situation to the Colonial Office, and their response to his letter — it should be noted that Dr. Doberck is referred to as ‘Government Astronomer’ throughout. From this distance in time it seems amazing that a decision on the appointment of a lowly second assistant should require consideration in the Colonial Office — on a par with deciding whether to go to war with Afghanistan. This letter of 22 November 1883 is one of the more remarkable exchanges between Hong Kong and London, both for its content and for its tenor of implied criticism of the Mandarins in Whitehall.23 Sir George Bowen relates how the ‘Government Astronomer’ Dr. Doberck had suggested that an Irishwoman whom he had brought with him, and who lived with him as his housekeeper, be appointed second assistant in the Observatory. He explained that this had not been sanctioned by the Executive Council, in part because when he brought it there for approval he was informed that ‘the relations between Dr Doberck and his proposed female assistant are notoriously not of a purely scientific nature, and that the Colonial Legislature would probably object to any vote for the appointment in question’. But the governor also took the opportunity for a much more discursive commentary on the situation generally with respect to the ‘Government Astronomer’. He wrote:


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my public duty compels me to state that all competent judges regard Dr Doberck as an unfortunate selection on the part of the Colonial Office in London. His scientific attainments may be sufficient for his post, although he does not pretend to an extensive knowledge of mathematics; and he appears to be active and zealous. But an Englishman of even inferior scientific attainments would have been much more likely to have proved successful in Dr. Doberck’s present position; and it would have been far better for the public service if an Englishman, or at least a Briton, had been selected from among the assistants at one of the Government Observatories. The success of the Meteorological observers at Hong Kong must depend mainly on the hearty cooperation of the English Consuls and Commissioners of Customs in the Chinese service stationed at the Ports of China [but with no mention of Zikawei or Manila]. Now all Englishmen resident abroad will agree in assuring your Lordship that, as a general rule, they are more English than the English at home; and that they are unlikely to sympathize with Dr. Doberck. He is a Dane, who has been connected with a Private Observatory in Ireland; who speaks broken English with a strong Irish brogue and whose appearance and manner resemble those of a Professor from one of the smaller German Universities, who has been domesticated in Connaught. He has not succeeded in making a favourable impression on most of the English officials with whom he has already come into contact. However, as he has been sent out here from the Colonial Office, it is the duty of my Government to give him a fair trial; and he will receive all proper assistance and support from me.

He goes on to complain about the extravagance of Dr. Doberck’s claims for financing of the Observatory, and how they should not all fall on Hong Kong alone to support, Hong Kong not being the only beneficiary of its services. The Colonial Office responded with support for the decision at Hong Kong, one official minuting that: ‘Dr. Doberck’s housekeeper, notwithstanding her experience in handling delicate instruments, cannot properly be placed on the votes as Second Assistant at the Observatory’. However, in response to his criticism of Doberck’s appointment, the governor was informed that in the matter of his qualifications, ‘the selection of Dr. Doberck was made by the Astronomer Royal and the President of the Royal Society (by whose advice the Secretary of State is obliged to be guided in such a matter) as being clearly in their judgement the ablest and most accomplished among the persons available for the post. The salary offered was not such as to attract anyone holding a high post in one of the English Observatories’.24 It will be remembered that Palmer suggested a salary 50% greater than the $2400 per annum advertised in line with Price’s recommendations, and it is relevant that other salaries in government in 1882 included: Colonial Chaplain $3840, Headmaster of the Government Central School $2400, Superintendent of the


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Botanical and Afforestation Department $2040, Assistant Surveyor General $3360, Colonial Surgeon $3744 plus private practice. The salary of the master of the Mint, William Kinder, almost twenty years earlier had been $6720. The dispatch continued: ‘Lord Derby [secretary of state for the colonies] trusts that Dr. Doberck’s recognised zeal and ability may, if wisely directed, be productive of valuable results’. Some second thoughts seem to have struck one official who minuted: ‘as Dr. Doberck is a very impatient and impracticable man it may conduce to the [illegible] of his observations as well as to the peace of the Colony if he is allowed some assistance towards the maintenance of a person who seems indispensable to him … . And that if [the governor] thinks fit he is at liberty to propose a moderate allowance for her as “attendant”.’ A second dispatch from Downing Street endorsed this view, saying that: if you do not mean that her relations with him, referred to in … are notoriously of an immoral character, I should be willing, since it appears that she assists Dr. Doberck in taking observations, and in the management of the Observatory instruments, to sanction the assignment to her of a moderate allowance as an “Attendant” should you think fit to propose a vote for this purpose. But I leave the matter entirely to your discretion.

Clearly Governor Bowen saw no lack of immorality, because he took no further action; no more is heard of Dr. Doberck’s housekeeper. In the context of his letter, some comment on the personality of Sir George Bowen seems called for. In his youth a two-time president of the Oxford Union, with a first in Classics, he nonetheless attracted much unfriendly comment in later life, the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph referring to him as ‘a sham philanthropist and shallow mountebank’,25 while one historian of the Colony writes that ‘by the time Bowen reached Hong Kong in 1883 he had developed into a consummate bore, idle, inordinately pleased with his lofty acquaintances and immensely conceited’.26 Colonial Office minutes referring to him use, among other epithets, ‘a pompous donkey’. These same Colonial Office minutes, by and large, give Doberck the benefit of the doubt. The window of tolerance for ‘non-Englishness’ at home was clearly wider than in the colonies, and (witness also the name of his housekeeper) cosmopolitanism was more the fashion at Collooney than in the colony of Hong Kong. No doubt, much of the indignation among the legislators arose from the fact that his dalliance with his housekeeper was with a European lady. Had it been with a local girl much less would probably have been made of it, although, of course, the question of appointing her to his Observatory staff probably would not have arisen. Even so, the degree of prejudice evident in Bowen’s letter is a bit surprising for someone in his position. He was not a young man, sixty-one years of age at the


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time and, if not part of the diplomatic service, had been around quite a bit having held governorships in the Australian colonies, in New Zealand and in Mauritius. As a wife, he chose an Italian. It is not even clear that the humour inherent in his description of ‘German professor domesticated in Connaught’ was intended. It might be noted that Bowen himself was an Ulster man, born in County Donegal, just above the border with Connaught, and the brogue should have posed little problem for him. Doberck, as we have seen, came from a cultured background in Copenhagen, and had already spent nine years in the United Kingdom without reported contretemps. As for his broken English, his many, obviously spontaneous, letters written to the Colonial Office before he set out show but little in the way of deficiency in his command of the language. It was, presumably, perceived difference in speech mannerisms and lack of familiar bonhomie that irritated his fellow colonial colleagues, whom he very well may have looked down on as scientific illiterates. At the risk of a cliché, we can confidently assert that he did not suffer fools gladly. At a time when the notion of ‘equal opportunity’ was far from the forefront, the idea of ‘fitting in’, whereby day-to-day harmony was ensured at the possible expense of superior competence, was widely embraced, and if it should eventually be gradually relaxed for the likes of Danes and Irishmen, it would be almost a hundred years before it would become accommodating, notwithstanding the efforts of people such as Pope Hennessy, of Chinese. It should be noted, however, that Doberck was not the only outsider on whom Bowen expressed unfavourable opinions. In a confidential letter, notable for its self-glorifying tone, to Lord Derby only a month later, he gave his very unflattering opinion of Eitel, writing of him: It would appear that the Colonial Department, (of course through inadvertence), have failed to acquaint Your Lordship with the character and antecedents of the person, whose irresponsible opinion on a matter of much practical importance … should outweigh the opinion of the Governor … It will be seen that Dr. Eitel has been mixed up with most unsavoury scandals of various kinds at Hongkong [footnoted: ‘It would be scarcely decorous — certainly not respectful to Your Lordship, to refer more particularly to these scandals’.] that he has been thoroughly discredited in the general opinion of this community; that he narrowly escaped suspension and dismissal for malversation of office; and that he was most severely censured and reprimanded by the Secretary of State … Nor is Dr. Eitel any real authority on [the Chinese language] … for he is notoriously, and as he himself admitted to me, wholly ignorant of the Chinese language, as spoken by educated and official Chinese.27


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It is true that Eitel had been censured over accepting $50 for a piece of translation he made in connection with a criminal case while he was the supervisor of court translators. However, Endacott observes that there could be little other scandal personally attaching to the man, and the ‘battle of Mountain Lodge’ affair, in which his name frequently pops up, and in which Bowen’s letter implies he had some not ‘decorous’ involvement, reflected in no way on his personal character.28 Bowen’s complaints would seem to again reflect a degree of discomfort in his dealing with ‘outsiders’. Not that the governor himself was spared unflattering comment, and something of the personality clashes may be read in other records of those days. For example, on the day in February 1886 when Bowen left the Colony the editorial of the China Mail spoke of ‘a man whose vanity almost overwhelmed every other feeling’ and, unknowingly echoing Bowen’s own distaste at the choice of a government astronomer, continued: how ‘residents were angry and disappointed at the Colonial Office for having foisted an effete Governor upon them [and] shocked at the persistent and indelicate display of his huge personal vanity’.29 In other ways, also, Doberck seemed to fail to comply with customary behaviour for a man in his position; unlike other heads of departments he never seems to have turned up at semi-official occasions where a head of department might be expected (perhaps excused by his relatively remote location, in Kowloon). For example, he is not to be found among the long list of officials attendant at the departure of Governor Bowen for Japan,30 or at what the local papers described as an entrée for legislators, judiciary and heads of department given shortly after his arrival by the new governor Sir William Des Voeux in October 1887,31 nor at the funeral of the highly respected colonial secretary Frederick Stewart on 30 September 1889.

A Promising Beginning Failing to appoint Mrs. de Salles, a search for a second assistant had to be made locally. A qualifying examination for the post, at a fixed $480 per annum, as well as for a post of ‘Chinese clerk’ (a secretary cum accountant cum translator) at the same salary but eventually rising to $600 per annum, attracted four candidates. The editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph decried the economy in this exercise, noting that the assistant ‘who will, no doubt, have to do a very large part of the actual work of the Observatory’ would draw a salary of $40 per month, ‘a trifle less than the pay of an ordinary constable’.32 As for the clerical post, he observed:


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no European can support himself respectably, and live honestly in the colony of Hong Kong on forty dollars per month; no educated Chinese, who possesses a thorough knowledge of the English language in addition to being a competent clerk and book-keeper, would accept such a beggarly pittance. This system of endeavouring to secure educated services at a slight advance on the wages of a street coolie is practically placing a premium on dishonesty.

The figure of $40 per month for the position of second assistant contrasted with Palmer’s suggestion of the much more generous sum of $75. The editor’s protestation of false economy, however, may also have been motivated by his long-standing animus against the surveyor general who, only a week earlier, had lost a libel action against the editor, Robert Fraser Smith, in the High Court. Notwithstanding the editor’s views, the potentially more lucrative position of clerk went to one Sung Man Hoi, while the second assistantship went to the best performing candidate in the examination, one Solomon Ruben Solomon. Mr. Solomon stayed in the position for only four months, after which a new examination brought in as second assistant Mahomed Alarakia. Mr. Alarakia is notable for staying in the Observatory, despite formal chastisement by the director, for longer than any other of the early minor staff, until the end of 1889. The buildings of the Observatory were sufficiently far advanced that by 1 January 1884 Doberck could take up residence there, start making meteorological observations and publishing bulletins (Fig. 5). It was, effectively, the opening day of the Observatory but there was no opening ceremony, no grand tour for government officials as there had been for the governor on the opening day of the Mint, eighteen years before.33 Perhaps the governor had already seen all he wished to see of the ‘Government Astronomer’. In addition to those from the Observatory site, some data were also collected from a ‘signalman’ on the Peak, and from the lighthouse keeper at Cape d’Aguilar. Meteorological results from the new institution were published from January 1884 and from 1 January 1885 the time-ball was dropped at 1 p.m. local time (05h 23m 18.1s GMT).34 For this he used the longitude of his meridian, 7h 36m 41.86s East of Greenwich, as determined by Lieut. Commander Green, USN, in 188135 (Hong Kong Standard Time, 8h from Greenwich, was not introduced until 1904).36 The accuracy of the time-ball was never brought into question, unlike at Shanghai where Dechevrens had to field complaints of errors of up to twelve seconds when the facility was brought into operation there in the autumn of 1884.37


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Fig. 5. The original Observatory building. Courtesy of the Information Services Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government.

It is of the subject of meteorology that the greatest demands would be made on the new observatory and it is timely here to have an overview of the maturity of the field at the time, especially its status in the United Kingdom with which Doberck would have been most familiar. It should be said that such status as it did hold fell well below that accorded to it in the United States and in France, but it was catching up. In the previous thirty years, the newly invented electric telegraph had revolutionized the ease in the United States and Europe with which meteorological observations could be shared among interested parties. Steady progress had also been made in the improvement of meteorological instruments. This included the design by Stevenson38 of a screened enclosure for housing the thermometer and the calibration by Robinson of his anemometer.39


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The interpretation of the data collected with the newly developed instruments led to the application of this understanding for practical benefits in the spheres of maritime, agricultural and hygienic activity. Particular importance was laid on the two, not entirely separate, aspects of storm warning and weather forecasting. An important event in regard to the former was an international congress that was held in Brussels in the autumn of 1853. There, a standard convention for observing conditions at sea and recording them in ships’ logs was established. Funds to enact such activities had to be found. In the vote in Parliament in June 1854 on a modest sum to approve a new meteorological department to be housed in the marine section of the Board of Trade, an Irish MP expressed the hope that observations on land would also be encompassed as he ‘anticipated that in a few years, notwithstanding the variable climate of this country, we might know in this metropolis the condition of the weather twenty-four hours beforehand’. At this, ‘Laughter’ is recorded in Hansard.40 Major progress in storm warning would, however, result, and even some in weather forecasting. Until his suicide in 1865, the head of the Meteorological Department was Captain Robert FitzRoy who took the initiative, beyond his official instructions, of constructing charts of the weather over large areas of the ocean on a single day — since they provided a synopsis of the weather, he called them ‘synoptic charts’, a name they retain to this day.41 By correlating these charts with barometric pressure measured at coastal stations, FitzRoy showed that these latter readings could be used as a basis for warning of an approaching storm. Accordingly he arranged to have instruments (including a marine barometer, designed by himself) distributed among telegraph offices around the coast. He also devised a simple but very effective system of signals for storm warning to be hoisted at shore stations which was afterwards widely adopted. With data telegraphed from thirteen such coastal stations and from another six centres on the continent, he was able, in February 1861, to issue a storm warning that was widely appreciated, and laid the foundation for issuing such warnings. By 1880, storm warnings on all coasts had an accuracy of about 80%. Following on this, Fitzroy started a programme of more general weather forecasts. On the weather forecasting side success was not as easily achieved. Weather, of course, would never be forecast with the accuracy of eclipses of the sun, but the reputation of forecasting also suffered from taking seriously quasi-scientific accounts of the weather and prognostications of some alleged meteorologists of long-range forecasts, like relating observations made in the autumn to the weather in the following February, which were nothing better than old wives’ tales. In contrast to the significant success achieved in storm warning, by 1880 general forecasting by the Meteorological Office had an accuracy of around 60% but falling to the order of 30% for Scotland and


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western Ireland, i.e. overall they were at least as often wrong as right! So there was still plenty to be done in this regard. Central to arguments for the possibility of forecasts were discussions of how imperfectly understood phenomena, like atmospheric electricity or solar activity or comets, could account for the behaviour of the weather. The role of sunspots, well known to have an eleven-year cycle, seemed especially attractive. As late as 1882 one Dr. Franklen Evans, a fellow of the Meteorological Society, expounded on his theory that sunspots were caused by the influence of the planets.42 He predicted that the weather in the following two or three years would be more violently disturbed than anyone remembered because of the approaching solar maximum when the four great planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, would be in perihelion together (i.e. simultaneously at their shortest distances from the sun) for the first time in 1800 years. Although the total energy that reaches the earth varies by only about 0.1% over the eleven-year solar cycle, extensive efforts were made to base some forecasting on the phase of the cycle. High sunspot activity was supposed to give rise to cyclones and heavy rain, low activity to calm and dry conditions. Geomagnetic activity certainly correlates with solar activity and so in this thinking it seemed plausible to give some credence to a role for it in the weather, giving independent justification for geomagnetic monitoring in an observatory. Correlation of the weather with activity on the solar surface took the fancy of several serious observers and was a major topic of popular scientific interest, especially as it might open an avenue on predicting famine in India and elsewhere. Meldrum at Mauritius claimed to find some correlation of cyclones in the Indian Ocean. But already by 1880, at least in the case of rainfall, like Fritsche at Peking as we noted in Chapter 1, G. M. Whipple at the Kew Observatory had failed to detect any pattern. Doberck’s only paper on meteorology before his departure for Hong Kong looked at the correlation between rainfall at Markree over the years 1833 to 1863 and sunspot number. He found a positive coefficient in the relationship, but did not estimate its statistical significance and made no comment on a belief whether a correlation existed or not.43 Prior to the opening of the Observatory, Doberck had published his Instructions for Making Meteorological Observations Prepared for Use in China, a thirty-four-page pamphlet which would see wide use. It is an instructive volume, complete with tables, directed at users on land and sea. It is seemingly of original composition, and not at all a copy of similar instructional works current at the time, although the work by Scott was probably his reference, especially for some of the tabulations.44 Apart from providing reduction factors45 to a temperature of 110°F (47°C), the only China-specific topic in it refers to the screen used for shielding the thermometers, a Stevenson screen, but with the louvres and the perforated inner roof made of zinc.


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The Observatory in Operation From May 1876 the local papers had carried, more or less daily, an unsigned ‘China Coast Meteorological Register’, apparently compiled by the Great Northern Telegraph Company. This reported meteorological parameters, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., from Hong Kong, Xiamen, Shanghai and Manila as received by telegraph, the last such table published on 27 December 1883. From 3 January 1884 the papers carried a ‘Meteorological Register’ for Hong Kong and from 5 January a ‘China Coast Meteorological Register’ presenting data at 4 p.m. on the previous day from Hong Kong, Xiamen, Shanghai, Manila and Nagasaki, the two Registers simply signed ‘W Doberck’. Records from other stations, Fuzhou, Vladivostok, were progressively added, and on 7 February and thereafter the reports were signed ‘W Doberck, Government Astronomer’. Such daily reports crucially depended on the facilities provided by the telegraph companies. Three companies managed telegraphic traffic inside and into China at the time, the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company (hereafter the Great Northern) whose connections extended as far north as Vladivostok, the British Eastern Extension Australasian and China Telegraph Company (hereafter the Eastern Extension) with connections to Manila and Singapore, and the Chinese Imperial Telegraphic Administration.46 In Fig. 6 we show the lines and cables of these companies at the time the Observatory opened. From 1871 there had been connections to Vladivostok, Nagasaki, Shanghai and Singapore, from 1873 to Xiamen and from 1880 to Manila. In January 1884 Canton was connected, in February the Eastern Extension established a connection to Hong Kong from Indo China as far south as Cape St. Jacques near Saigon, and in 1887 Taiwan (Tamsui) was connected to the mainland at Fuzhou. From 1886 the three companies operated in collusion to keep tariffs high, but in general they were generous where the transmission of meteorological data was concerned; the cost at commercial rates for the data regularly transmitted would have far exceeded the budget of any of the observatories. Many more recording stations provided delayed readings, valuable for the study of typhoons. All the stations reporting to the Observatory in 1885 are shown in Fig. 7. No doubt the data were professionally reduced, but otherwise this China Coast Meteorological Register, which Doberck would often mention in the context of his work load, hardly differed from the column under the same name that had been appearing in the local papers for the previous years. It bore none of the hallmarks one might expect of an ‘Imperial Maritime Customs Meteorological Report’ which in his account of November 1883, on his tour of inspection, he had presumed to prepare and have Hart publish at Shanghai. The hope for Hart’s sympathy had by now evaporated. The Register contained no local forecast of the weather. Apart from storm warnings any such forecasting would not be attempted until 1895.


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Fig. 6. Telegraphic connections to Hong Kong around 1884. After Ahvenainen (1981). Courtesy of Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.


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Fig. 7. Meteorological stations reporting to Hong Kong Observatory in 1885; B=Breaker Point; C=Chapel Island; F=Fisher Island; G=Gutzlaff; L=Lamocks; M=Middle Dog; N=North Saddle; O=Okseu; Sh=Shaweishan; St=Steep Island; T=Turnabout. After Doberck, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 15 May 1886.

Introducing Storm Signals The first practical benefit expected from the new institution was a reliable system of storm warnings. There were two distinct aspects to this task: the formulation of a warning message based on an analysis of collected data and the transmission of this message to interested parties. The difficulties inherent in the first part of the exercise can be easily imagined. What is a little surprising is the amount of controversy in the years ahead that would accompany the second part, the communication of the warnings. As mentioned previously, an early storm signal protocol already existed in the Colony before the setting up of the Observatory; indeed Eitel credits the harbour master with having given timely warning of a typhoon as far back as 1848.47 The warning system employed was an adaptation of the methods used


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in the United Kingdom for signalling gale warnings, based on hoisting cones and drums to characterize local storms, but without any input to categorize the particular features of their behaviour in tropical conditions. From 1870 the United States Army Signalling Corp used a system of coloured pennants, but no notice seems to have been taken of this signals system by British meteorologists. The embryonic warning system was reinforced in May 1880 when messages began regularly to arrive from Manila advising of conditions in that part of the South China Sea. Here we recognize a difference in the nature of warnings for storms that were distant and those that were expected to impact locally. The former were of interest to mariners setting out from port, while the latter, which could be expected to comprise but a small percentage of overall warnings, were those that the local populace should heed. Confusion in the local population over this distinction was to lead to frequent complaints in the years to come. Under its very rational director, warnings from the Observatory would, of course, be exclusively based on meteorological parameters. Aching corns or squirrels’ tails were not to be taken into account and the windows of the Observatory could be permanently blinded as far as the published warnings were concerned. First efforts in this were taken in August 1884 when the Observatory informed the public of new meteorological signals, to be distinguished from storm warnings, for the Colony.48 As indicators of distant storms the following were hoisted: a red drum for a typhoon east of Hong Kong. a red cone pointing upwards for a typhoon to the north ‘or that it is progressing towards North,’ a red cone pointing downwards for a typhoon to the south ‘or that it is progressing towards South,’ a red ball for a typhoon west of Hong Kong.

These signals were intended as information for mariners, and did not forecast the arrival of a typhoon. Local storm warning would be given by one or two cannon shots, which would indicate the approach of gale force or typhoon force winds. These signals were regularly published until 1890 when, following the commission of enquiry’s call for a ‘more amplified code of signals’, small modifications were made. The rather ambiguous ‘or that it is progressing towards North’ etc. was removed and a distinction was made between distant, farther than three hundred miles from the Colony, and more local storms, the latter signalled by black versions of the signals indicating that the storm was within three hundred miles of Hong Kong. Warning of a local storm was augmented by the firing of the gun three times which would warn of a sudden shift in the wind direction. In 1890 also a simplified system of night signals, lanterns, for local storms was adopted. These signals remained in force until 1897. We will return to the topic in Chapter 7.


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The very first opportunities to introduce the new system were not so successful. No gun was fired for a storm that struck on 29 July 1884 and the first warning, on 21 August, was not followed by gale force winds — the warning of this storm sent to Xiamen, where it did strike was timely, however. It was acknowledged by the authorities at that port, although the notice was treated there with relative indifference.49 A good opportunity to impress the authorities, and the community, in Hong Kong and to show the value of their new observatory presented itself with the arrival a few weeks later of a major storm. The first signal, a drum, was hoisted on 8 September 1884 and the storm struck Hong Kong on the night of 10–11 September. This warning was less than successful, not because of any lack of competence in assessing the storm or in firing the gun, but because of the director’s crusade against the telegrams from Manila. According to the China Mail it was one of the heaviest storms which had visited the Colony in the previous ten years. On 10 September the Observatory fired signals of one gun at 6 a.m., and two guns at 7 p.m., adequate warning under the circumstances.50 On that day, the 10th, however, the editor of the China Mail (which was published in the evenings) observed: ‘The barometer has been falling steadily since the morning, the lowest reading at Messrs Falconer & Co.’s establishment being at about 4 o’clock, when the glass registered 29.46 [inches of Hg] … the Chinese are fully expecting a heavy blow and the harbour is quite clear of cargo boats and sampans’ and, after much more detail along similar lines of preparations locally, continued: ‘it is rather unsatisfactory that we have received no notification from our Government Astronomer. We believe that a telegram was forwarded from the Observatory this forenoon to the Central Police Station, to the effect that the typhoon in the East, notified on Monday evening [8 September], was advancing in this direction, but we have received no notice to this effect’. From the report it seems that many in the harbour had got the message, so why this failure in communication with the main local newspaper? Doberck later informed the editor that he had indeed sent a notice to the Central Police Station at noon on the 10th warning of a typhoon approaching Hong Kong and saying: ‘This is the way in which I am instructed to issue similar notices, and as soon as they have been dispatched from here [the Observatory], my responsibility in the matter ceases’. The editor surmised that the police authorities thought the telegram was for their special benefit and that the state of the weather did not concern the community.51 The police authorities, however, informed the editor that they did not make the telegrams public because ‘Dr Doberck had given instructions that his messages were not to be published without his orders, and in the instances in question there were no such orders’.52 The editor, naturally, suggested there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but was there?


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To the Observatory’s credit, although it was a big storm and there was widespread damage to property, including the blowing off of the roof of the magnetic hut and damage to his own storm signal drum, making it unavailable for warning of the approach of another typhoon later in the month, no loss of life seems to have been reported.53 It does, however, seem that the director was being deliberately spare in providing information — for reasons that we will now see — and the newspaper reports were but a public manifestation of a conflict which had erupted a couple of months earlier. The episode would mark the end of any honeymoon period he might have with the China Mail, whose editor, and the paper generally, would adopt an increasingly hostile attitude to Doberck, if anything more vitriolic than in its earlier tirades against Governor Pope Hennessy. The China Mail had been regularly publishing the Meteorological Registers from the government astronomer, but at the same time it was carrying, in the same page column, reports of measurements of pressure and temperature made several times a day at Messrs Falconer & Co., the watch company in Central. It also relayed from time to time telegrams received in Hong Kong from the Manila Observatory related to possible typhoons. We know that the director did not appreciate any such encroachment on what he saw as his sphere of activity. Already, an acrimonious dispute related to the distribution of storm warnings to newspapers and, in particular, the circulation of information arriving from the Observatory at Manila, which pitted the director against the harbour master, the commissioner of police and the government, had arisen. The harbour master was in the habit of forwarding copies of weather telegrams he received from the Manila Observatory to the local newspapers, the Hong Kong Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Naval Yard, but in early July acknowledged a request from the director of the Observatory to cease sending such information to the newspapers, saying how he had ‘no desire to interfere with what you consider your legitimate duties, and I shall be much obliged if you will give the information to those officers directly the telegrams are received’.54 Doberck suggested that ‘the Governor should leave the issuing of weather forecasts and storm warnings in my hands and prevent Heads of other Departments from interfering in matters of which they have at present no knowledge’.55 He was informed, however, that ‘His Excellency considers it highly important that the messages should continue to be sent as originally arranged’.56 This was the background to the failure to distribute widely warnings for the storm on 10–11 September, a failure that he blamed on the police. His behaviour was the subject of the first official censure he received, the acting colonial secretary writing:


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you have been disingenuous enough to write to the Public Press to attempt to cast the blame for its non-distribution on the Police Department. I am directed by His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government to inform you that your conduct in writing to the Public Press animadverting is highly improper and must not be repeated … [the public] is entitled to have full and early information about the weather.

This fixation of his with the warnings emanating from the Manila Observatory, which we will have cause to return to again, was an unrelenting theme throughout his stay in Hong Kong, and can be seen as a factor contributing to his final departure. Already, with only a year’s experience of tropical meteorological conditions he was maligning people who had twenty years’ experience of monitoring typhoons and the conditions under which they occur, and whose reports had been welcomed by the merchant community since the establishment of a cable connection with Manila in 1880. His behaviour could be put down to jealous rivalry on his part, something the local commercial community never hesitated to do, but there was some validity to his insistence that only the raw physical data on conditions at the Philippines were relevant and that the Manila Observatory’s interpretation of it could be misleading. It is understandable that he would not wish to see predictions with which his own might be compared in unfavourable circumstances, and he had justifiable cause for frustration with many confused messages that arrived from Manila in the autumn of 1887, but his lack of diplomacy, as well as his obvious slighting of the Jesuit observatories, make it hard for us to sympathize with his approach. As in most matters, almost nothing of Doberck’s presentations is to be found in the surviving archives (for reasons that we will see later), although the bulk of his arguments can be inferred from the other side of the extensive correspondence. He developed further antagonism with the government by submitting a long letter for publication in the Gazette in August 1884, only to be told that ‘it is not usual to publish letters in the Gazette. Kindly follow ordinary rules on Notification’.57 Much of it, however, was in fact later published there.

A Forceful Director A simple castigation was not something that fazed the director, and within the year he sought a salary increase — the first of many applications — and the governor, despite their strained relations, agreed to forward his request to London. Such requests, though formally of trivial interest, if we follow the details, offer us a window into the man’s character and how he was seen by his contemporaries both as regards his work and as regards his personality. This


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one was rejected, so he came up with the idea of what would be called ‘private practice’ in June 1884. He penned a letter to be forwarded by the governor to the secretary of state for the colonies, citing the shortfall of his $2400 per annum from the original salary of $3600 suggested in Palmer’s report, and the observation by Price in his report that an increase in salary might follow on any material increase in the director’s scientific duties; he therefore laid claim to some compensation. He informed Lord Derby that the time-ball would soon be operational and promised an accuracy of a tenth of a second in its signal. He sought permission to calibrate (ships’) chronometers and charge $5 each for the service, pointing out that such a practice obtained at Mauritius where he said ten dollars was charged — more likely ten rupees, about five dollars.58 The government pointed out that there was no provision for such moonlighting in colonial service (in fact the colonial surgeon was permitted private practice), but the governor was kind enough to forward the suggestion to London. A favourable answer returned rather quickly; provided such activities did not interfere with his government duties such a privilege was granted him by the secretary of state, in the first place for two years. He managed to slip notice of this private service into the Gazette59 (fee unspecified), but within weeks of this the colonial secretary was writing him, in the context of some flyers he prepared to advertise his service: ‘the words “On Her Majesty’s Service” are improperly used by you as the rating of chronometers is entirely a private work that you have been permitted by the Secretary of State to undertake’, followed shortly by another letter to the effect that staff ‘could not assist in the transmission of clocks to him’ — such clocks could be quite heavy. Then came a much more forceful letter from the superintendent of police pointing out that under no circumstances could policemen be used in his enterprise, paid or unpaid. The only further mention of this entrepreneurial adventure was his lament a year later in the context of another request for a salary increase and an improvement in his ‘small and rather unhealthy quarters’; ‘the Government did in no manner support the project, and in consequence I did not derive any benefit at all from [it]’.60 Within another eighteen months, in October 1885 in a letter to the governor, he returned to the question of his salary: My pay including the small and rather unhealthy quarters set apart for my private use are not nearly worth ₤500 a year instead of ₤600, [sic] and in consequence I should have been materially better off had I not resigned my position in Ireland, as much more as the isolated position of the Observatory raises the expenses of living ... [it was because] I was induced to expect that my future income would to a great extent depend upon the success of my investigations, that made me anxious to secure my present appointment and caused me to disregard questions of personal comfort or expenditure of spare time in the commencement.61


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He returned to the clause in Price’s report which foresaw a possible increase in salary in the event of an extension of the Observatory’s activities. Such was indeed the case he claimed, citing the fact that about $40,000 had been spent in setting up the department, in contrast to Price’s original estimate of $18,680, and the fact that he had been charged, on his arrival in Hong Kong, with extending his remit to cover a complete and extensive meteorological service. He suggested a raise in his salary to $300 per month, the sum posited as a minimum for the post by Palmer. That the governor was no more moved by this appeal is clear from his covering letter forwarding the request for a salary increase and improved accommodation to London: ‘the Surveyor General says “The apartments are lofty and capacious and extremely healthy … the residence is finer than that of the Astronomer Royal of England or that of the Astronomer Royal of Ireland”, and [it is] generally regarded as one of the most enviable residences in this Colony’.62 He also returns to his observations of Doberck of the previous year; a Dane, from Ireland, ‘in his own country, or in any other country on the Continent of Europe, a Meteorological Observer would not (as I am assured) receive one half of a salary of Six hundred pounds sterling’. While not recommending the salary increase, Bowen did take the opportunity of soliciting some Imperial support, say half the annual cost, for an institution that, he pointed out, was more than a local convenience. Continuing, he wrote: ‘Dr Doberck appears to have a competent knowledge of his work which is that merely of a Meteorological Observer. But if he should resign … I strongly recommend that it should be filled up by an Englishman or at least a Briton … I need scarcely say that I do not make this recommendation from an illiberal feeling towards foreigners’ (the italics are mine). And, somewhat contradicting his earlier assessment of the salary offer, he wrote: ‘If the present salary and allowances should prove insufficient to secure the services of a properly qualified Briton from one of the Government Observatories, I admit that in such event they should be increased’. All the requests were denied in London, but with minutes along the way that reflect a reluctant, but long enduring, appreciation of the man: ‘… short time during which he has held the appointment [makes it impossible] to entertain his application for additional salary, … his disagreeable and difficult manner is calculated perhaps to lead to his actual services being rather undervalued’ and ‘Dr Doberck as we well know is a very cantankerous person but at the same time very efficient and zealous in his own work’.63 But Dr. Doberck was not one to abandon an issue, especially one for which he could marshal such strong arguments in the form of Price’s report and Palmer’s original estimate of the salary necessary for the position, and he would return to this again, finally, in 1888 with some success. In November 1888 the


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governor consented to forwarding to London an application from the director for an increase in his salary and an improvement in his accommodation.64 He made no suggestion in the matter but enclosed Doberck’s submission, referred to the earlier unsuccessful applications and added only that: ‘Dr Doberck’s family, now heard of for the first time, consists, not of his wife or children, as he is not married, but of “two sisters and their companion” who are not in the Colony’. In his presentation, Dr. Doberck pointed out that it was almost six years since he was appointed with an implied promise that his salary would be increased in the event of any extra duties being attached to his job. His workload, he claimed, had been ‘fairly doubled [by the addition of] daily weather reports, storm warnings, meteorological investigations, etc.’ and his ‘publications concerning typhoons and the law of storms have proved of the greatest value to the shipping in the Eastern seas, thus directly contributing to the wealth of the Colony’. He thought a salary of $3600 per year would be appropriate. His accommodation, consisting of only four rooms (apart from servant’s quarters), were so small he said that he was ‘prevented from being joined by my family’ — one of the sisters we have encountered at Markree. In fact his quarters comprised all the first floor of the building, seventy feet by thirty feet, inclusive of a front verandah. It comprised four rooms: a sitting room, a dining room, a bed room with bath attached and a spare room.65 He suggested the addition of a couple of rooms to his quarters. As with most dispatches that involved Dr. Doberck, this one elicited comments from the Colonial Office officials which ranged over a wide spread of views. All opinions there were against any improvement in his accommodation, but a majority opinion had some sympathy for a salary increase. At least one official believed he had no case while another wrote: ‘some claims by the good work he has done in Hong Kong, and his disagreeable and difficult manner is calculated perhaps to lead to his actual services being rather undervalued’. Another commented: ‘Dr Doberck is I believe wanting in refinement and courtesy and raised the animosity of Sir G. Bowen who refused to recommend an increase of salary … since then three years have elapsed during which Dr Doberck has done good work in storm warnings out of pure love of his work, as the Director of the Observatory is really not compelled to do more than very little work’.66 An increase from $2400 to $3000 per year, effective from 1 January 1889 was finally sanctioned (the director at Mauritius was getting $3400).67 It should be noted that, as we will see, the appreciation expressed in London of Dr. Doberck’s work is nowhere to be found among contemporary records in Hong Kong.


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Establishing His Observatory To return to Doberck’s professional activities, we find that he had to contend with a less than enlightened administration. In August 1885, the middle of the typhoon season, the community were informed that the gun at the Water Police Station in Tsimshatsui, the same as one that used to warn of approaching typhoons, would be fired when the steamer carrying His Excellency the Governor arrived from Yokohama — Bowen had gone off on a much criticized holiday at a time of military tension in the region.68 The same gun was also fired to announce the arrival of mail steamers. The potential for chaos this had, especially among the boat people in the harbour, is not difficult to imagine. Doberck was rendered some additional assistance in April 1886 when, by a five-to-four margin, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council voted funds for an additional Chinese clerk in the Observatory, at the same time unanimously warning him that ‘any application for a further increase to his staff will not be entertained’. It is to be noted that among those voting against the proposal was the surveyor general, J. M. Price.69 But increased impatience on the part of the government with their strongwilled head of department may now be detected; he will not have appreciated the colonial secretary writing in April 1886, with unusual familiarity: My dear Dr Doberck, the point you refer to in connection with the publication of your Annual Report was duly considered. While Government Astronomer may be a convenient local designation Director of the Observatory is your official title. In the Dispatch announcing your appointment you were so designated and by that designation you were gazetted on your arrival in the Colony. Yours very truly, …70

In forwarding the report to the Colonial Office, the administrator, W. H. Marsh, remarked that Doberck contended that he was the government astronomer ever since his arrival in the Colony, but that he is always addressed as director of the Observatory.71 We have seen that certainly was not always the case and, indeed, note that the first annual report on the Observatory’s performance, dated 1 January 1885, had been presented to the Legislative Council and gazetted as Report for 1884 from the Government Astronomer. A little less kindly was an official letter from Stewart in September to the effect that: ‘there is no objection to Dr Doberck publishing this book or pamphlet himself but I cannot direct the staff to assist him. It is no part of their official duties. He may, however, make any private arrangements he likes with them’.72 He did, however, manage to publish it, first in the Hong Kong Telegraph and later in Nature. This was the first edition of his Law of Storms, to which he would later draw much attention.


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By the time of a second edition, four years later, his relations with the government were no less frosty. Denied charging the cost of preparation of plates and woodcuts to Observatory funds, he was informed by the acting colonial secretary: ‘His Excellency … is not disposed to authorise the publication at the public expense of your work on the Law of Storms. If you were to confine your remarks to the questions put to you it would, in His Excellency’s opinion, be of advantage’.73 The government’s failure to support the publication, like the failure to distinguish the typhoon gun from other signals of pomp or convenience, is as much a measure of the generally unscientific mentality of those to whom he answered as a reflection of his strained relations with these people. Further to this and, no doubt, appraised of the situation by Dr. Doberck, the editor of Nature lamented objections being made to the expense of publishing the monthly weather reports of the Observatory in the official gazette. He noted that while ‘local critics say that these are of no practical value … similar tables are published by every Observatory in the world’.74 It should be noted that the Observatory published, daily from 1884, the China Coast Meteorological Register, and, annually, Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory.75 The daily publication was carried in the local China Mail (although sometimes sacrificed when there was a shortage of space, as also at such times as Doberck boycotted this publication), but they also, as though to cast doubt on the reliability of the Observatory’s readings, almost always carried records of temperature and pressure at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. recorded at Messrs. Falconer & Co.’s premises on Queen’s Road. His ‘pamphlet’ on the Law of Storms was to pass through four editions and, as if to spite official indifference to his publication, he lost no opportunity in singing its praises. For example, in a rare public appearance, as an expert witness in a minor court case in April 1890 he deposed, according to a report in the Hong Kong Telegraph, that ‘the day in question was as dry as a bone, gradients being steep for N. E. winds’, quite irrelevantly adding: ‘which, as the “Law of Storms” (published privately owing to government parsimony) would show’. Heads of government departments were not expected to embarrass their masters in this way and the behaviour would, of course, be even less accommodated nowadays.76 There had been a niggling personal hostility in the China Mail, the leading English daily in the Colony, to the director for some time, but until September 1886 the editor refrained from the type of ad personam attack he had used against Governor Pope Hennessy in earlier times. On the 8th of the month, however, in the context of a typhoon warning issued by the Manila Observatory to which the Hong Kong Observatory gave no recognition, he laid


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out an indictment of Doberck’s failure to collaborate with the observatories at Manila and Zikawei. He wrote: The head of the Government Observatory (the learned Dr Doberck), in whom all the intelligence regarding coming storms was expected to centre, does not seem to fulfil his destiny. When the considerable expense connected with the establishment of the Observatory was being considered, the ideal of a grand combination of storm-warnings, gathered from all ports extending from Vladivostock to Singapore, was put forward as the main reason for the outlay. The still grander idea of reciprocating with these other ports, … was advanced as the crowning advantage of our somewhat costly Observatory and staff. It may be that the then Governor (Sir Pope Hennessy [sic]) gave a too highly embellished account of the benefits likely to accrue from the establishment of a Meteorological department here. … Why this [ideal has not been reached] it is hardly necessary to explain. … Where are the reciprocal communications concerning weather changes? The friends of Dr Doberck [believe] his learned brethren and collaborateurs in science at Shanghai, Manila and elsewhere fail in those mutually beneficial courtesies necessary to the prosecution of systematic meteorology … On the other hand, the worthy Doctor is by others asserted to have got all his brethren … by the ears. Our Astronomer is spoken of as a veritable Storm King, and that it is perfectly reasonable and safe to predict a storm, official or scientific, upon his approach. [We] draw the attention of the Government and the Colonial authorities to the apparent absence of reciprocity between the Observatory here and the leading men in Manila and in Shanghai … it is the duty of the local Government to see that this obvious purpose of the Meteorological Department is fulfilled. … Without all-round reciprocity, it seems to us that the usefulness of the Observatory is comparatively small. … If this [lack of reciprocity] be so, let it at once be set right by the local Government — unless, indeed, ‘all that is seen to at home’ or Dr Doberck is independent of all interference.77

Similar sentiments were echoed at the time in the Singapore Free Press, writing: ‘the well-meant scheme of Sir John Pope Hennessy appears to have been a partial failure, owing to personal idiosyncracies on the part of the, doubtless accomplished, scientist in charge of the observatory at Hongkong’.78 A lack of government sympathy for what he saw as his well-justified case for a revision of his salary to the level initially proposed by Palmer, or for his publication of the Law of Storms, did not dismay Doberck, or cause him to retreat. He did not take his first long leave until he had been in position for eleven years. His annual report for 1885, which, among other things mentioned his observations of a few double stars, also had some mild complaints on the inadequacy of the staffing provisions in the Observatory, attributed by him to the fact that daily weather reports were not intended in the original proposal and he was only acquainted with the requirement after he reached Hong Kong.


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The report had been commended by the editor of the China Mail, but with the reservation that: ‘to meteorologists the report we should say will be of considerable value; its practical worth is not so apparent’.79 Straying somewhat from the field of meteorology, Doberck also ventured that the increase in the death rate among Chinese, as established in the registrar general’s returns for 1885, was an effect of the increased strength of the South monsoon in that year. This admittedly rash conclusion was ridiculed in a sarcastic letter from an anonymous correspondent in the China Mail; the editor of that paper agreeing that ‘his [Doberck’s] reasoning on the point is rather too slender to carry conviction’.80 Another commentary on this report appears farther afield, in the 1 May 1886 issue of the Japan Weekly Mail. The Colonial Office noticed this, and one of their minutes suggests that Doberck himself probably wrote this article.81 The article mentions that ‘in 1882, although the local Government of Hong Kong [under Pope Hennessy’s reign] were willing enough to pay handsomely for a thoroughly equipped observatory, the most important part of the provision for magnetic research was ruthlessly cut out of the original scheme by the Colonial office at home’. The article went on to make much of one of the paragraphs in the director’s report, ignored by the China Mail. It reproduced it, with parts italicized, as follows: The gun placed at Tsim-shat-sui [sic] for announcing the approach of a typhoon was, during the year, also fired for announcing the arrival of the mails. On three occasions the sampans and other small craft sought positions of shelter. After the issue of the Post Office Notice I was informed that the arrangement might be altered when any serious inconvenience was felt, and I would now venture to submit, for His Excellency’s consideration, whether it is advisable to have the gun fired for both purposes, and if not, what signal should cease,

commenting: this is practical joking with a vengeance. The Hongkong officials must have some humour still left in them, in spite of the terribly depressing climate in which they live. But practical joking is often mischievous, and even cruel. … It would be hard to devise a more ingenious plan for defeating the beneficial purposes which the observatory is meant to serve by bringing its operations and warnings into public contempt.

Rather than that of the director, it is the hand of Palmer (who was by now living in Japan) that is strongly suggested by this commentary, especially the reference to magnetic observations. Doberck, before he left London, was enthusiastic about expanding the magnetic recording aspect, explaining how, because only differential measurements were to be made, Palmer’s insistence


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on high quality building materials was not essential and that he could use local materials for constructing a geomagnetic laboratory. His proposals, as we have seen, were snubbed and he seldom thereafter emphasized the magnetic monitoring aspect of his work or failings in this respect and, in fact, only three years later suggested that, if not abandoned altogether, the observations might be suspended for four years in order to reduce the workload at the Observatory and, presumably, to provide some time for astronomical research. The proposal, based on the specious argument that ‘the magnetic variation at this station undergoes so little change from year to year as to make continuous observation unnecessary’, was that magnetic monitoring might be suspended for four years, and thereafter be conducted on alternate four-year cycles — an unusual suggestion from a man who always espoused a very systematic and rigorous attitude to scientific matters. Governor des Voeux probably welcomed a perceived reduction in purely scientific work at the Observatory but thought it better to seek approval from the Colonial Office. He noted that the suggestion was probably prompted by a desire on Dr. Doberck’s part to provide for the more effective performance of other work of greater importance, ‘without increasing the expenditure on an establishment which relatively to the means of the Colony is already, I apprehend, far more costly than any similar institution elsewhere’, and asked the Colonial Office to determine the opinion of the astronomer royal and the Kew Committee.82 Not surprisingly, this proposal was vetoed. Both institutes forcefully asserted the importance of continuous magnetic monitoring, noting that the time saved could not exceed more than a few hours each month;83 and Doberck explained in his annual report for 1888 that the magnetic observations were to be continued. From this distance the suggested suspension of magnetic monitoring seems a logical proposal in the context of staff shortages, as the data accumulated could hardly have been of any greater practical value than his astronomical observations, and the outcome simply reflects the direction from the Royal Society in London. As we shall see, Doberck was very keen to pursue astronomical observations in the Observatory, but that would be discouraged. The geomagnetic monitoring (or seismology) was hardly less pure science than was astronomical observation (the only practical aspect of monitoring the magnetic field was for updating ships’ charts, to which land-based measurements had little to contribute) but it had the advantage that, at least until the arrival later of tram-ways and other sources of interference, it could be reliably carried out at stations like Hong Kong. Astronomy could only be very imperfectly pursued in places like Manila or Hong Kong when compared to South Africa or Australia, where sites with very good seeing conditions could easily be found. The excuse that the southern sky, that Doberck would so much have liked to explore, was ‘virgin territory’ was by this time no longer valid. An


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observatory had existed at Madras since 1790, from which, by 1844 a catalogue of 11,000 southern stars had been published, and another was established in a very favourable location, the Cape of Good Hope, in 1841. Such considerations, of course greatly weakened Doberck’s case for continuing with astronomical observations. Apart from a small, 2.5-inch transit telescope necessary for calibrating the time-ball, from early 1885 he had in operation what he refers to as the ‘6-inch Lee Equatorial’, a telescope inferior to what he had been used to in earlier years, but one with which astronomical research could still be carried out.84 Fr. Algué at Manila was also a keen astronomer, who had to forgo his passion in favour of meteorology. When at the Georgetown College Observatory, he designed a novel zenithal reflector telescope that he had hoped to use at Manila, but he could never find the time for such activity. Of 10.5 cm aperture, it enabled the simultaneous observation of two stars, at equal zenith distances north and south by reflecting the light from one of them from a basin of mercury. At Shanghai also, astronomy had to be demoted and it was not seriously pursued there until 1900 when Stanislas Chevalier established a separate astronomical observatory on Zosé Hill (Sheshan).

The Censored Report When it came to writing the director’s annual report, a submission expected of every head of a government department, a template had essentially been established by earlier reports from people like the inspector of schools, the postmaster general, the colonial surgeon and other government officers, and Doberck’s reports for his first couple of years did not greatly diverge from such precedent. However, the proofs of his report for the following year, 1886, were acknowledged as follows by the acting colonial secretary: His Excellency is unable to authorize the publication of your Annual Report for 1886 in its present shape. … your remarks on the alleged shortcomings of the Observatory are unbecoming a public report and might be considered as a disrespectful criticism of the decision of the Secretary of State. Colonel Palmer’s scheme … was deliberately set aside by the Secretary of State for the Colonies after consultation with the Kew Committee and the Astronomer Royal. Statements made in paragraphs 4 and 13 are inaccurate.85

This was, in part, a reaction to the enthusiasm with which Doberck in his draft praised the bypassed report of Palmer: ‘The great merits of Colonel Palmer’s report cannot be sufficiently insisted on … the difficulties subsequently encountered were caused by his proposals not having been carried out.’ In his reply, three days later, the director, without admitting any inaccuracy, agreed to


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revise the two paragraphs referred to — minor matters about the firing of the typhoon gun, and the actual cost of setting up the Observatory — but failed to address the real points at issue. Apart from the fact that the draft was still signed ‘Government Astronomer’, what probably most riled His Excellency, who at the time was the officer administering the government, W. H. Marsh, was the, admittedly gratuitous, comment in it: those observations are efficiently carried out in other observatories and particularly at the Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius, where such great improvements have been lately effected under the genial rule of a Governor so well qualified to grasp the importance of scientific research.

That he should invoke the Observatory at Mauritius as an exemplar is very understandable; it was the one among colonial observatories with which the institution at Hong Kong had most in common. That the governor of Mauritius at the time was none other than Sir John Pope Hennessy (governor 1883–89), however, was hardly likely to endear his case to his superiors. Both the writer of the letter, Frederick Stewart, and especially the officer administering the government, Marsh, had crossed swords with the former governor on a number of occasions.86 In earlier years, as Pope Hennessy’s colonial secretary, Marsh, had gone so far as to openly apply for a transfer on the grounds that he could no longer work with the then governor. The Colonial Office was perfectly sympathetic, but did not judge the reasons valid.87 All this could not but have resulted in a jaundiced view of the director’s submission. Doberck’s draft report also contained the unremarkable sentence: ‘Micrometric measurements of Jupiter and Saturn have been reduced and published in the Astronomical Report and progress has been made in the reduction of Double Star Observations’; no such ‘Astronomical Report’ appears to have eventuated, but the results were published in the Gazette.88 A series of exchanges followed: ‘I’m afraid you cannot be absolved from sending in an Annual Report’ — resulting in Doberck submitting a very truncated report; less than half a page long, it omitted all the contentious matter, any mention of double stars and most everything else besides. This brief report, as well as a separate Annual Weather Report of the Director of the Observatory for 1886 and still signed ‘Government Astronomer’, was tabled in the Legislative Council and published.89 The officer administering the government (now Major N. G. Cameron) forwarded it to London, but without explaining in detail what went before, other than that the original draft submitted contained ‘so many inaccuracies that my predecessor declined to publish it’.90 The response from the secretary of state for the colonies in London was: ‘I have to request you to inform Dr Doberck that it is impossible for me to accept the very meagre Report which accompanied your dispatch as the Annual Report of his Department for


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the year 1886 and to desire him to furnish the usual detailed Report with the least possible delay’. In the event he did submit, in August 1887, a sanitized report of two pages, still signed ‘Government Astronomer’. It also retained the mention of double star observations; to the cognoscenti, the study of binary stars, as distinct from the many other observations of transiting stars, had no contribution to make to his charge of keeping time. This third version of his report was presumably forwarded to the Colonial Office, but it was not presented to the Legislative Council, nor published — only the very brief second version occurs in the Gazette — but it is the third version which occurs in Observations and Researches for that year. As mentioned, he was in the habit of submitting brief annual reports on the Observatory to the Royal Astronomical Society. None, however appeared for 1887, which in his report for the following year, published in 1889, he attributed to ‘circumstances connected with a change of government in Hong Kong. His Excellency the present Governor has decided that purely astronomical observations are not to be subsidised here in future’. Not that this would inhibit him in his star gazing, as we shall see anon.


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5 Universal Dissatisfaction … it is important that I should have somebody living with me who would be at my beck and call any hour of the day or night. Doberck to Colonial Secretary, 18861

Conflicting Perceptions With the role of astronomy in the Observatory ostensibly sidelined, more harmonious relations between Kowloon and Central might have been anticipated and meteorological results in keeping with the government’s expectations forthcoming. However, in October 1887 we find Stewart, always keen to avoid bald confrontation, again writing personally to Doberck. Marked ‘Private’ and ending with ‘yours very truly’, the note includes: ‘I think that you will agree with me that it is contrary to all the traditions of the Service that an officer should dictate to the Government, and say “I will do certain work for you, but you must give me the salary I chose to name”. … It is not time but approved service which counts for advancement’.2 ‘Traditions of the Service’ is a concept that would take the director a long time to assimilate. In November of that year we again have a minute from the governor to the effect that: I observe that Dr Doberck signs himself as Government Astronomer and I request that he will cease so to sign himself, so giving a wrong idea of his position. He is Director of the Observatory and was appointed as such for specific purposes, though, after these are provided for, there is, of course, no objection to his giving his spare time to the general interests of science.3


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By now, this insistence on his title is seen to be not as petty as it appears on first encounter, and its motivation is further clarified by later minutes by the governor: ‘I cannot see sufficient justification for the publication, at Government expense, of the tables on Double Stars. The printing for the Observatory already costs very disproportionately to the advantage obtained by the Colony’,4 and ‘Dr Doberck in his paper on Double Stars shows that he has abundance of spare time for other objects than those specific ones which occasioned his appointment’.5 It was not delusions of grandeur — presumption to a local equivalent of the astronomer royal — that drove Dr. Doberck’s enthusiasm for his title but the expectation that ‘Government Astronomer’ would entitle him to material support for the pursuit of astronomy in the Observatory. Indeed he was bestowed the grander title by at least two writers; in 1889 O’Rorke wrote: ‘Dr. Doberck, the present distinguished AstronomerRoyal of Hong Kong, has rendered services to science which are spoken of with respect in all the observatories of the world’,6 while as late as 1902 a visitor described how: ‘I called on … the Astronomer Royal — it is a fact that little Hongkong has one’.7 Doberck saw himself, above all, as a professional astronomer, and with some justification. When he died in 1941 he merited an obituary notice in Nature, the leading science journal of the day, lauding his astronomical achievements. But he may not have been unhappy, after the many years of bureaucratic conflict, to leave Kowloon when he reached the earliest retirement age of fiftyfive in 1907, and finally to return to what he had always wanted to do: observe the stars — but that’s in the future. Neither did the publication setback on double stars abort his astronomical ambitions in Hong Kong. He just had to be more circumspect, and omit such topics from his annual report in future. In his published report for 1887 he has yielded on the title of government astronomer and begins to sign himself ‘Director’. But he was clearly enamoured of the former title, which was never legally his, because in the less official Meteorological Register, carried in the daily press, he is still signing himself government astronomer until as late as 16 October 1889. However, presumably stung by a letter in the China Mail on that day pointing out that he had no right to the title,8 from 17 October it is signed ‘Director of the Observatory’. In 1888 a paper was read at the Liverpool Astronomical Society on Comet-seeking by Dr. Doberck, ‘Her Majesty’s Astronomer at Hong Kong’.9 Even then, as late as February 1925, in a letter resigning from an International Astronomical Union committee on double stars, he signs himself as ‘late Government Astronomer, Hong Kong’.10 Despite the frequent early references to him as ‘Government Astronomer’ there is no doubt that he never officially held this title, and both his official letter of appointment, and the gazetted notice of his arrival in Hong Kong designated him as director of the Observatory.11


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By the summer of 1887 there was widespread dissatisfaction in the Colony with the Observatory’s performance, at least as far as meteorology was concerned. This was, according to newspaper columnists, for two reasons: the director’s antagonism to the Manila Observatory, and his devoting excessive time to astronomy and terrestrial magnetism matters. The writers were not convinced by his protestations on how little of the effort in the Observatory was devoted to the latter two subjects. In keeping with his charge, apart from warning of approaching typhoons, he made no effort to make weather forecasts; a typical daily bulletin being that of 6 June 1887: ‘The barometer has fallen and gradients are very moderate for S. W. winds. The temperature and the humidity are high and overcast weather prevails’. In terms of subject matter studied, the Observatory, as set up along the lines of Price’s second report, differed only from that in Palmer’s proposal in making inferior provision for geomagnetic monitoring. Doberck would always like to attribute any shortcomings in his fiefdom to the failure to implement Palmer’s proposals, although he probably had the proposed salary for the director principally in mind. In Palmer’s report the three topics of a time-ball, meteorological monitoring and geomagnetic monitoring all got comparable attention. Within a week of that report being sent to London there appeared in the local press an article by one P. Doyle, a recently arrived engineer but not otherwise identified, examining it in some detail.12 Mr. Doyle expressed clearly argued opinions that we, with hindsight, find easy to appreciate. We cannot do better than quote him verbatim: Major Palmer is a philosophical enthusiast; and … his suggestions, despite their scientific merit, are too ambitious for the resources of so small a colony … and they are not quite adapted to the immediate wants of the day. … We regret that Meteorology should have been relegated to quite a secondary position in the Report. Considering the wide-spread and divers interests related to this important branch of physical science — its bearing upon health, influence on agriculture, and importance to the shipping interests of the world at large, it should certainly have taken precedence (in the Report) from the indisputable standpoint of its known practical value. ... We might rest satisfied, pro tem, with the system of observing, registering, reducing and comparing in operation in Calcutta [which] is able to produce and give those forecasts of the weather and storm warnings that prove such an unvaluable [sic] boon to mariners in, round, and about the Bay of Bengal. … It is pretty generally understood that the objects of an Observatory are not attained by the mere notation of certain facts and figures, which is only a preliminary stage or medium to the end to discover the mysteries of nature … Pogson’s long series of carefully recorded astronomical observations … are lying useless for the requisite agency for reducing them; and the difficulties that Perry of Stonyhurst has had to overcome in similar matters are well known. … In


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Early China Coast Meteorology attempting to imitate the first observatories in the world — those of the Jesuits — there is the possibility of the result being a travesty. It savours of presumption; for that wonderful organization embodies the intellect of the world; its ways are inscrutable and resources the highest possible.

The account brings forcefully to mind the fact that Palmer was an astronomer, and not a meteorologist, and the surprising fact that in establishing an observatory at the ends of the Empire, as we have already noted, no input was sought from the empress’s long established observatories in India. As far as I can see, Doyle’s commentary was never referred to again.

Government Impatience The problem of ‘objectionable’ material in the director’s annual reports was to arise again but, rather than attempt a negotiated solution, the governor resolved the matter by simply censoring the relevant paragraphs from the published version. This he did for the following year’s report, for 1887. Paragraph six has been excised, but its contents, complaining that ‘His Excellency contemplates limiting the regular publications of the Observatory to the Weather-Reports for the twelve months of the year and to a detailed Annual Report’, were conveyed in forwarding the report to the Colonial Office by Governor des Voeux.13 A more severe censorship was applied to his report of the following year, 1888, where three of the paragraphs appear, numbered but blank, in the published version — which also leads to some unexplained lack of continuity in the text. They seem, however, still to have been retained in the version sent to London (not seen), because the governor refers to them in his covering letter of explanation.14 They related to routine complaints of the director, the resignation of his first clerk and his failure to find competent clerks, lack of cooperation on the part of the Harbour Department in collecting log books from ships in port and the unsatisfactory situation with the police submarine cable across the harbour. The governor had very little sympathy with him on at least the first two subjects. In relation to staffing he wrote: ‘I fear that the fault must be largely with himself. Almost every clerk who has been appointed as his subordinate, desires to be removed to other employment’. Similarly, he absolved the Harbour Department of any want of cooperation and affirmed his confidence in the harbour master’s level of assistance to the director’s programme. On the matter of the cross-harbour link, he said that he knew that Dr. Doberck wanted a dedicated cable, but pointed out that he could not see the expense involved justified by the need at that time.


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Among all this domestic controversy, the director seems to have tried to take some initiative in broadening the international scope of the Observatory’s meteorological activities. Some time in 1887 he tried to resurrect Hart’s idea of coordinating distributed meteorological centres throughout the region, an undertaking that was effectively denied him back in 1883. He proposed dividing the Far East into three sectors, assigning China, and overall management of the operation, to himself. Japan and further north were to be the responsibility of Knipping in Tokyo, while Fr. Faura in Manila would look after the third sector. When Faura was approached along these lines for his cooperation he was astonished that no mention was made of Dechevrens at Zikawei and he declined to take any part in the project which, not surprisingly, fell by the way.15 Doberck again approached the inspector general of customs five years later suggesting a central role for Hong Kong Observatory in regional meteorological notification only to be informed that ‘the Inspector General does not care to discontinue arrangements which have been once advisedly entered into’.16 It was not only the likes of Dechevrens who were kept at a distance. In June 1889, his closest colleague, Figg, in connection with his application to go on leave after six years’ service, received a letter addressed: ‘Dear Sir, … it is impossible for me to agree on the term you suggest. ... Yours faithfully …’.17 And, indeed, Figg was denied permission to go on leave, only to fall seriously ill by the end of the year. Following on this another source of conflict arose. As anywhere, civil servants were kept on a tight rein, so he should not have been surprised by the tone of a letter from the colonial secretary in July 1889. Why, he was asked, did he abandon the Observatory for the month of June, moving, with a clerk, to the Government Pavilion on the Peak. How could he do this, in view of his continuous complaining of staff inadequacy, the government wanted to know. The matter was pursued rather aggressively. On 8 July the colonial secretary wrote to him saying that it had been: ‘brought to the attention of the Governor that you have been living at the Government Pavilion the Peak since the 11th ultimo and intend remaining there till the 9th instant, and that you have not visited the Observatory during the period mentioned. Moreover, you have one of the clerks with you and His Excellency would therefore be glad to know as to the truth of the above rumour’.18 Only two days later a minute by the governor was sent to him, to the effect: ‘Dr. Doberck’s presence at the Peak may, or may not, be necessary for the performance of his duty. But the Observatory is the place appointed for the performance of his duty and I desire to know categorically whether he went there at all between the dates mentioned, and if not, whether he obtained leave for his absence’. This was followed three days later by a letter to the director from the colonial secretary, enquiring: ‘why, if the Observatory can be left for a whole month in charge of Mr. Figg (yourself and a clerk being absent) there is any objection to Mr. Figg


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having the holiday which he has earned by length of service’.19 And three days later another letter arrived from the colonial secretary noting that: ‘you visited the Observatory only on one occasion for about an hour … unless you can make a categorical denial … and at the same time mention the dates and hours of other visits His Excellency must regard the fact of your being present on one occasion only as being established’.20 We do not have any of Doberck’s direct responses to these communications, only his explanation given in his annual report — that his visit was a reconnaissance study for a possible extension to the Observatory. The alternative explanation that it was an opportunity to work on his astronomical data is hardly less plausible. This episode has been rather laboured, but only to illustrate how pugnacious the director was when dealing with officialdom, and how most formal missives passed his desk, to use a vulgar cliché, as water off a duck’s back. Figg, possibly because of his individual efforts at Kowloon over the summer, and frustration at not being able to take home leave, fell seriously ill in the autumn and had to enter hospital. There were, as we have noted, also problems with his minor staff, the governor minuting: I must warn Dr Doberck, however, that the patience of the Government is being seriously tried by him in respect of his relations with his staff, and that I cannot but feel that, but for faults on his side, these frequent changes might have been averted.21

The rate of turnover of junior staff in the Observatory, be they Chinese, Eurasian or European, was alarming, some staying for only a few days, not many for more than a few months — sometimes they sought transfer to other government departments on a reduced salary.22 Junior staff consisted of a second assistant, a first clerk and, from 1887, a second clerk. His first and third second assistants, Solomon Reuben Solomon and J. B. Eça da Silva, lasted less than a year, but the other two, Mahomed Alarakia and Ho To-shang, served for six years or more. It was with the clerks he had the greatest difficulty, hiring and firing at least eight in the first six years.

Reluctant Director By the autumn of 1889 Doberck had been six years in position, and had undoubtedly devoted himself to the cause of an observatory as he saw it, but he clearly resented the lowly status that was accorded to him in the colonial hierarchy (and the salary that attached to it). The personal aggravation, to this point so much in evidence, might, however, have been contained if the Observatory had been perceived as doing a good job, but this, alas, was not the case. He set high store by the accuracy of the measurements made at the Observatory, accuracy well beyond that necessary for practical applications.


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The standard for pressure measurements was a Negretti and Zambra barometer which he calibrated against the standard instrument at Kew before he brought it out. It then read seven thousandths of an inch too high, which of course he allowed for, and comparisons with intermediate standards over the following thirty years suggested that reported pressures were within three thousands of an inch of the Kew standard — a very satisfactory situation.23 Temperature reporting was not as satisfactory, not because of instrumental inadequacies, but the question of a suitable environment in which the readings should be taken. This was especially problematic in the case of recording maximum and minimum temperatures and different schemes were experimented with. Although thermometer readings were reliable to a tenth of a Fahrenheit degree, the uncertainty in the maximum could sometimes reach a value as large as four degrees. The determination of the relative humidity was a more challenging task. As was common at the time, this was done using wet and dry bulb thermometer readings and hygrometric tables — the validity of which was always in question. From 1887 an Alluard’s hygrometer was used in an effort to calibrate these tables, and their failings became apparent, but it took some time before a consensus on valid tables was arrived at, and indeed, in his retirement Doberck’s only foray into meteorology was the production of a new set of such tables. Rainfall-measuring devices of the time were not very sensitive, and results obtained were par for the course, with appreciable errors when the rainfall was very light or very heavy. Wind speed measurements were made with a rotary-cup anemometer mounted on a pole on the roof of the Observatory building, at a height of forty-five feet above ground level. The instrument was reliable, except in the very strongest typhoons as we will see, but the accuracy of the values reported was bedevilled by ignorance of the exact calibration factor for that kind of instrument. It would be years after Doberck’s departure before such a factor was established, by comparison with a pressuretube anemometer. There is one other aspect of the Observatory’s activities we should mention. An automatic tide-gauge was acquired in the autumn of 1884, but, for lack of funds, was not installed until two years later. Largely looked after by staff of the Harbour Master’s Office, it collected data for three years after which it was transferred to the Imperial Maritime Customs for studies along the China Coast. The accumulated data were sent to London for harmonic analysis — we will return to the subject later. There is no doubt but that the quality of the data recorded was of a professional standard, something that Doberck would imply was not true at the Jesuit observatories, although he never documented proof of such an assertion. But what was done with all this high quality data? There were continuous grumblings about the service provided to the community by the Observatory


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and the governor’s patience finally gave out when no signal was raised for a typhoon that struck in October of 1889. He minuted: On the evening previously (15th) I expressed … my surprise that there had been no storm warning, and early in the afternoon of yesterday, my expectation as to the approach of a storm had become so assured that I ordered preparations for it. Having gone to take a view of the Harbour for the purpose, I observed that the Chinese boats in large numbers had already sought shelter, and yet, while there was light to see the Observatory flagstaff there was no warning of the storm which came on us in full force a few hours afterwards. Considering that we had had regular communications with Manila on the previous days, it seems to require explanation how improved communication could have made any difference in this case.24

Dr. Doberck’s defence was the poor quality of the information in the telegrams which were transmitted from the police station, e.g. in September there was an average of seventeen mistakes in the data received per day. He claimed to be misled by the data received on 15 October, ‘whereas the correct telegrams really did show the locality of the advancing storm clearly and above doubt’. The reaction in the local press was strong, the China Mail at the time expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the Observatory, and with the director’s attitude in particular: the residents chiefly wanted [from the Observatory] reliable and speedy information with regard to the storms which are so disastrous to shipping. It might become a centre where very valuable information with regard to magnetic currents, periodicity of sun-spots &c. &c. would be collected, but the great object of its existence was to give storm warnings. The present Director apparently failed to comprehend this. His failure in this respect has this year become more manifest on account of the curtailment of the telegrams from Manila. Two or three years ago the messages from Manila were so full and so definite that we scarcely thought of our Observatory. Now, however, owing, it is said, to a quarrel of our ‘astronomer’, who looks on the men in Manila — men who know their business far better than he does — as amateurs, we have lost the good supply of storm warnings and being cast on the mercy of Dr Doberck we have discovered our weakness. All this must be changed. We must get on a sound footing with the Manila people and with everyone who can give us particulars with regard to the whereabouts of these unwelcome visitors. Dr Doberck should also be given to understand that, whatever he may do in the way of star-gazing, the meteorological work must have precedence. The learned Doctor, as is known, holds himself out as Government Astronomer. He must be told that it is not as astronomer he is here but as director of an observatory the chief object of which is to give meteorological assistance. It is our opinion and the opinion of many in the Colony that we might be better


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served, as far at least as our most important requirement is concerned, with a great deal less money; and it would not be a bad thing if the Governor appointed a small commission to enquire into the whole matter. His Excellency may have some diffidence in stirring up this affair as Dr Doberck’s appointment was made by the Colonial Office, but the question of storm warnings is of such importance to the Colony that he ought not to hesitate to make a strict investigation.25

A correspondent in the same paper the next day, 16 October, signing himself ‘Signal’, wrote that: the first indication of today’s ‘blow’ was made known at about six o’clock [after dark] … by the highly paid official who is supposed to post himself and others on all matters connected with these yearly dangers. … It is high time that the Government took the matter entirely into their own hands, by appointing a responsible and reliable servant to fulfil the important duties in connection with the observatory.

The editor added a postscript to the effect that ‘had the good feelings which formerly existed between Manila and Hong Kong been still in existence, we would have had notice of the gale before it was actually on us’. Another in-theknow correspondent the same day, signing himself ‘Veritas’, wrote in praise of holding such an enquiry and was more personal in his criticism. He noted that Dr. Doberck had ‘on every occasion tried to subordinate meteorological work (for which the place was mainly established) to his astronomical hobbies’, adding: The plain fact is that there is no one in the Colonial Secretary’s Office here with a sufficient amount of scientific knowledge to combat the generally absurd statements made by Dr Doberck. … Dr Doberck is nothing if not an obstructionist. He is a professional Astronomer; as a meteorologist and magnetic observer he came here a mere tyro, the extent of his knowledge in both these subjects, beyond that which general scientific reading gives to any man, being confined to that which he was able to pick up from a few weeks’ training at Kew immediately prior to coming out here in 1883. … His dictatorial and dogmatic assertions have put him at loggerheads not only with every department of the local Civil Service with which he has come in contact, but with outsiders too. He has … termed the Philippines a terra incognita as regards meteorological work. … the good Fathers who look after the weather reports in the neighbouring Spanish Colony resented this dictum and wrote to Dr Doberck about it. He replied, and told them that he could not read Spanish, but that some fine day or other he would have the communication translated.26

The writer also criticized how little work the director did: ‘holds one of the easiest billets in the local service’; and the quality of the typhoon warnings: ‘the veriest booby in weather-lore knows that a typhoon is not indicated by a shallow depression’.27


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These complaints in the papers were followed up in a budget debate in the Legislative Council in December 1889, concerning a $600 increase in the director’s salary authorized by London, and further criticism was aired. Mr. Chater observed: ‘I think we were better off when we got the information direct from Manila, than we have been since Dr Doberck came here’.28 Mr. Ryrie commented: ‘he ought not be there for the benefit of an Astronomical society at Home, but for the purpose of giving us storm warnings’.29 To which the chairman of the Finance Committee added: ‘the officer looks upon himself as appointed from Home and hardly a Colonial officer at all, and he sets himself to carry out the views of the learned society of which he is doubtless a corresponding member, and not the wants of the Colony’. The only positive comment came from the surveyor general (a newly arrived replacement for Price, who had departed earlier in the year) who observed that ‘he obtained information from the Director which was of material assistance, and Dr Doberck responded to his request with very great courtesy’.30 In the same month another letter writer to the China Mail, styling himself ‘Mariner’, wrote that: ‘Dr Doberck is no doubt a hardworking and conscientious official and has done a great deal for the advancement of science generally, but from a seaman’s point of view we would much rather see him a better clerk of the weather than an astronomer’. Complaints about the operation of the time-ball were rare; however some doggerel in the press — The Ball by which we rate our clocks, Which falls from the staff near Kowloon Docks, Is broken down, it seems to me, Or else the Joker’s on the spree,31

— was motivated by a notice from the director in December 1889 that it would not be dropped in the near future because of a lack of staff — First Assistant Figg was ill, and the second assistant had left. These excuses elicited little sympathy among correspondents in the newspapers, who thought he should have foreseen the circumstances, one writing: ‘Dr. Doberck loses no opportunity of covertly sneering at the meteorological authorities in Manila, in Shanghai and in Japan, — at men who have devoted long years of patient and unwearyring [sic] study to local phenomena’.32 The governor, presumably not fully satisfied with Doberck’s reasons for the failure to raise the typhoon signal, and perhaps partly in reaction to these complaints in the press and a desire to bring some discipline to bear on his recalcitrant official, in January 1890 appointed a sixman commission to enquire into the workings of the Hong Kong Observatory.33


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The Enquiry of 1890 The first of four commissions or committees of enquiry that Doberck was to face during his tenure of office was set up by the governor, G. William Des Vœux, in January 1890. It consisted of six men, the captain superintendent of police, Walter M. Deane, as chairman, Alexander P. McEwen, a member of the Legislative Council, Captain Harry T. Grenfell of the Royal Navy, Major James C. Barker of the Corps of Engineers, a retired harbour master, Commodore Robert M. Rumsey and Nathaniel J. Ede, a justice of the peace. The commission was charged with seven lines of enquiry: (i) Whether the establishment of the Observatory had affected an improvement on the system of storm warnings which previously existed, and what measures could be taken to secure or to increase improvement in that direction (ii) The causes of failures, if any, in the system of storm warnings as worked from the Observatory, and what causes led to the absence of warning of the storm of the previous 15–16 October (iii) The practical advantages to the community of the Colony obtained from the Observatory as then established, and how such advantages might be increased (iv) What proportion of the time of the director and staff was occupied in securing those practical advantages, as compared with time devoted to the general advancement of science (v) Whether the expenditure on the Observatory was justified in view of the practical advantages referred to. Whether the provision of a direct cable across the harbour to secure regularity of communication; and the cost of working and maintaining it, would be a justifiable expense; and whether further expenditure in the same direction (e.g. in payments to observers at Bolinao and elsewhere) might be considered desirable in view of the results that might be expected from them (vi) Whether the commission would recommend the continuance of the Observatory, with its existing or any other organization, and (vii) Any recommendations the commission desired to make on the above subjects. This course of action was widely welcomed in the press. In an editorial in the China Mail: the scope of the enquiry is so clearly defined that we cannot fail to achieve from the gentlemen nominated some enlightenment on the method of work in the Kowloon Observatory and some data on which we may determine the utility or worthlessness of that institution as at present conducted.34


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The commission was given wide powers to subpoena witnesses and examine them in private, but the members received no reply from the Spanish consul to a letter they wrote him regarding the interchange that took place in respect of the meteorological and other scientific observations which may be taken at Manila. The optimism in the press, and possibly in the government, that a report hostile to Dr. Doberck would emerge was not to be fulfilled. Two factors, in particular, probably worked in the director’s favour. One, at least in the opinion of the local press, was the inability of the commission to interview Mr. Figg, who, according to Doberck, ‘worked as long as he could, but he has now broken down, and is in the Hospital … with chronic dysentery and it is doubtful whether he will get better’.35 Combined with his earlier response to Figg’s application for leave, these comments suggest a rather cold indifference to his colleague. It is not, however, obvious that Figg would have lent weight to efforts to discredit the director. Ever very reticent, and loyal to his boss, when in later years he came into a situation of being able to take positions on various issues he never deviated from the director’s philosophy. A much more important factor favouring the director in the commission’s proceedings was an unforeseen event: the intervention of, by now MajorGeneral H. S. Palmer, the early drafter of plans for an observatory. It appears that he just happened to be transiting Hong Kong for forty-eight hours on his way from Yokohama to England in late January at the time of the commission and, probably seen as a very qualified and independent observer, was asked for (or volunteered?) an opinion on the status of the Observatory. The commission had not completed its task when Major-General Palmer arrived and he was immediately asked to visit the Observatory and make a report. Presumably the latter was to be written on board ship and forwarded from Singapore, for it is evident that during the forty-eight hours of his stay in the Colony Palmer could not have visited the Observatory, examined its records and mode of working and written his report. An item in the Japan Weekly Mail throws some outside light on the events at the time: They have an excellent Observatory and an excellent astronomer, as we think in charge of it, but somehow things have not worked smoothly. There are complaints that the Observatory is employed less for local purposes than for abstruse astronomical observations, in which the practical people of the colony take little interest. … We venture to hope that his [sic] conclusions will tend to restore harmony, for from all that we have been able to gather, Dr Doberck’s abilities are of a very high order, and beyond doubt his industry is unflagging. He is not gifted, perhaps, with a large share of the suaviter in modo, but sensible men ought to value solid work more highly than graces of manner.36


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Although laid before the Legislative Council, the full report of the commission was never formally published — a hundred copies were printed and a second copy sent to Doberck on 20 May.37 It is not clear why this course of action was taken. The report, apart from its recommendations, contained all the interviews together with a ‘very valuable’ memorandum from General Palmer, ‘in whose conclusions we in the main concur’, appended. The local press reported the recommendations and Palmer’s Appendix but not the full text of interviews.38 However, we can glean much of the details of the interviews from commentary in the China Mail, although we must be mindful of the editor’s hostility to Doberck in their selection.39 As we know, General Palmer visited the Observatory on 21 January and, for the last time in official documents, refers to the director as ‘Government Astronomer’. A hostile commentary on his memorandum in the China Mail labels it as ‘almost entirely a special pleading for Dr Doberck’.40 Not surprisingly, Palmer assessed the situation at the Observatory in the context of his bypassed proposal for its establishment and, not surprisingly, found that any deficiencies existing were a reflection of the failure to follow his suggestions of 1881. That it strongly took the director’s side we can see from the excerpts given: as I have above recommended, we shall hear no more of tardy storm warnings, failure to drop the Time Ball, or other occasional shortcomings which an ignorant public is always ready to deride. Intelligent shipmasters well know and appreciate the work done by the Hong Kong Observatory. For the less intelligent some further education, which will surely come, may yet be needed. … if [the Observatory’s] practical value has not been apparent to the public of the Colony they must be regarded as lacking the capacity for intelligent appreciation in such matters.

Reproduced for purposes of ridicule, still, from a former protégé of Governor Pope Hennessy, long a bête noire of the China Mail, this was rubbing salt into the wounds. Not reported by the China Mail were Palmer’s further comments: [Doberck’s] numerous monographs on typhoons, including the pamphlet on ‘the Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas’ … are specially excellent. The last named is certainly the best thing of its kind ever yet given to the public, and it is, as it should be, highly prized by intelligent mariners along this entire seaboard.

It is not quite clear what he meant by ‘numerous monographs’. Nothing that he had published, apart from his pamphlet on the Law of Storms, could be described as a monograph. He had in the previous two years published ten short notes on meteorological topics in Nature and in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, but these were largely descriptive, and not such as to draw much attention — see publications of 1888 and 1889 in Appendix D. All


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the mariners whose cross-examination the Mail selectively reproduced averred that the situation with respect to storm warnings was no better, if not actually worse, than before the setting up of the Observatory and no mention is made of the Law of Storms in the excerpts published. Even so, the commissioners concluded that, with the introduction of an observatory there had been an improvement in the system of storm warnings, and that there was not so much a failure in the storm warning system as a want of completeness in the system, especially in telegraph technology. As to the issue that triggered the enquiry, the failure to warn of the storm of 15 October 1889, the commissioners noted that the barometer locally did not indicate the approach of a storm until the evening of 15 October, but commented that they ‘are unable to follow Dr Doberck in his conclusion that he was misled in this particular case by erroneous telegrams, but are of opinion that owing to constantly recurring errors [in telegrams] he felt a want of confidence in the information forwarded to him’. The lack of scientific training at that time, even among very experienced practical men, as the commissioners were, is evidenced by their failure to react to some of the information he supplied. For example, answering their enquiry about errors in the telegrams received on the 14th he explained that there was one, an error of four hundredths of an inch in the pressure at Tokyo. Considering that there was a round-off cum reading uncertainty of at least one hundredth of an inch in all such data and Tokyo was so far removed from the site of the storm, they should have realized that it could not have been a contributing factor to the failure to raise a storm warning. Doberck did not shy from his habit of slighting the Jesuit meteorologists, observing that before the establishment of his Observatory, ‘there was little known about these typhoons. Certainly before the foundation there was no scientific investigation’. The commissioners did not challenge this opinion. The director was very critical of the translation of telegrams from cipher at the Police Station on Hong Kong Island, but even the commissioners were not to be convinced by his insistence that a pressure reading of 29.99 had been mistranslated as 30.04. His efforts to deflect criticism onto the poor quality of telegrams received, and a shortage of staff available to him, paid off. The practical advantages to the community from the Observatory, the commissioners agreed, were very small but attributed this to the limited number of staff. In the matter of the relative time devoted to the general advancement of science, they regretted that owing to the ‘deplorable and lengthened detention of Mr. Figg from a severe climatic illness’ they were unable to pursue their enquiries as far as they would have liked. They noted that ‘the equatorial transit [sic] telescope has not been used for a long period, and probably the refusal of His Excellency the Governor to permit the printing at public expense of Dr Doberck’s brochure on Double Stars led to the almost entire abandonment of researches connected with the general


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advancement of science’. Dr. Doberck told them that no time whatever was spent on the advancement of science. It is true that up until that time essentially all his publications from the Observatory were related to meteorology, but an ‘abandonment’ of astronomical researches is hard to reconcile with the fact that of his twenty-five publications in the following seven years only two were not related to astronomy. The commissioners were of the opinion that the time-ball should be dropped daily without any, except the most unavoidable, interruption and regretted that this had not been done since the beginning of January and that it would appear probable that the difficulties attending the operation had been considerably overrated. They certainly had cause to suspect chicanery on Doberck’s part. He maintained that: it takes six years to train a native sufficiently to hoist the time ball. … It is a very complicated ball. It is probably the most perfect time ball ever constructed and in consequence it is very complicated. … Of course it would not be so complicated to a well-educated foreigner after he looked at it once or twice. … An Engineer having to do with that kind of work would probably learn to work it in half an hour.41

Excepting the abortive communication with the Spanish consul, the state of relations with the Manila Observatory, so often stressed by the local press, was not pursued in the report, although it had been probed on several occasions during the interviews. Of Doberck’s stewardship they said: ‘whilst paying every tribute to Dr. Doberck’s scientific qualifications, the Commission cannot but regret that the correspondence laid before them shows that he is at times disposed to place unnecessary difficulties in the way of the solution of matters connected with the practical working of the Observatory’. They criticized the funding of the observatory at a level of $7000 per annum, where a sum of $10,000 had been projected in the original estimates (by Palmer) and attributed to this discrepancy some of the shortcomings of the institutions. They concluded that the Observatory ‘should certainly be continued, but it is clear that the only way this continuance can be rendered thoroughly efficient is by sanctioning a much larger annual expenditure’, estimated at $13,000 yearly, almost doubling the cost. They ended with the following summary recommendations: (a) There should be an increased staff of assistants, at least three European assistants, one of whom should have sufficient experience and knowledge to permit of his taking charge of the Observatory, and three Portuguese or Chinese clerks. ‘The European assistants should be obtained from England as speedily as possible’. (b) A cable across the harbour should connect the telegraph office with the Observatory; it was, in fact, in the process of being laid.


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(c) The storm signals should be repeated at the Harbour Office. (d) A branch observatory, manned by one assistant, should be established at the Peak, where the true direction of the wind can be more easily recorded and the signs of an approaching typhoon more easily noticed, and it should be in telegraphic contact with Kowloon. (e) A more amplified code of signals should be adopted affording greater information on the direction and distance at which a storm may be supposed to exist. (f) The signals should be larger; six feet tall rather than four feet was suggested. (g) Greater publicity should be given to results arrived at, and information received by the director of the Observatory by posting at the Harbour Office and at and in frames on the side of the Clock Tower, and the director’s deductions should be fully given. (h) A system of coloured lamps should be organized to display signals at night if necessary. (i) The signal gun should continue to be fired as it tends to mitigate loss of life among the boating population. Doberck generally welcomed the report, but in a letter to the colonial secretary noted that in it ‘it is stated that at times unnecessary difficulties were placed in the way of matters connected with the Observatory’ (the very words used to castigate himself) and that ‘that is a notorious fact. But the Commissioners do not state that those difficulties were due to Mr J. M. Price only. I suppose they did not like to throw reflections on him now that he is gone’.42 However, his public response to the commission’s report, given in his own annual report for 1890, ‘submitted in manuscript as ordered by His Excellency the Governor’, i.e. not as proofs via the government printer as was usually the case, the government no doubt fearing a repeat of the confrontational draft for 1886, was less abrasive. Although he commented that the commission had mistaken his observations on double stars, done in Ireland, as work done in the Observatory, and ‘my explanations are quite incorrectly put down’, he was happy that the Commission’s report had been printed but not published, as ‘the printed evidence … would have done much towards strengthening popular fallacies concerning typhoons’. But he would have been happier still with the report’s overall tone. Far from recommending abolishing the Observatory, the members had quite some sympathy for an expansion in its staff, and he quotes with obvious glee one of their observations: ‘An Observatory is essentially one of those Institutions on which, if thoroughly good results are to be obtained, a considerable sum of money must be spent’. Any welcome the report received in other quarters was far more muted. On the day after its recommendations were made known the editorial in the


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China Mail observed: ‘The report of the Observatory Commission is a strange document’. It welcomed some of the recommendations, including the setting up of a branch station on the Peak, most of which it thought were matters of detail which the director ought to have seen to long ago. He would have encountered no opposition on the part of the government ‘had he, instead of assuming the dogged sullen attitude of an ill-tempered child shown the least suavity and tact’. It continued: ‘the tenor of his [Dr. Doberck’s] evidence … shows that he was making mountains out of molehills … Dr. Doberck’s troubles and difficulties have mainly been due to his churlish temper and — if we are not mistaken — to his want of experience of meteorological work. … Had the Commissioners taken the trouble to examine the First Assistant Mr Figg, they would, we are persuaded, have obtained quite a different version of the affair [the storm of 15–16 October]’. It opposed a major increase in expenditure on staff, suggesting that ‘an efficient, willing director, with one English assistant, is quite able to do all that we require in Hong Kong, if they work in harmony with our good friends in Manila’. The government’s response was more equivocal. The colonial secretary, saying he was already in receipt of five recent letters from the director on various issues, commented that ‘Dr Doberck’s unpractical character and ignorance of the regulations and customs of the service render him a most difficult man to deal with’. He advised the governor of the relative costs involved in enacting the commission’s recommendations for staff, and in shutting down the Observatory. The latter he took as Doberck’s entitlements and pension with no mention of Figg.43 The acting governor F. Fleming chose the former course of action, and sent the report to the Colonial Office, who would have to approve any future expenditure on the Observatory, conveying Dr. Doberck’s suggestion that two new posts should be set up, and the salary of the junior staff significantly increased. The recommendations in the report found mostly favour with the Mandarins there, one official minuting: ‘we were economical in starting it, and … it appears that about 1886 the Colonial Government was inclined to starve it. The present papers I think make out a good case for more liberality … General Palmer’s memorandum is worth reading’.44 Another: ‘No doubt the Observatory has not had as warm support as it would have had the director been a more genial person. It should not be starved’. Any hopes the government had for reining in its director backfired, and its dissatisfaction and frustration with Doberck around this time can be seen in letters from the colonial secretary in October 1890: ‘if you are not satisfied with the conclusions at which the Government arrives you had better resign your appointment and someone will doubtless be able to work the Observatory with such a staff’,45 and in April of the following year:


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Early China Coast Meteorology if you do not feel equal to carrying on the duties of your office with the assistance of the staff afforded by the Government, His Excellency, whilst regretting the loss of your services, will be prepared to accept your resignation.46

Not very likely!

Expansion of the Observatory The Situation in 1890 Six years into its operations, the role of the Observatory, as we have seen, was less well appreciated among the community in Hong Kong than could have been hoped for at its inauguration. From mid-November 1889 the first assistant Figg was ill — he entered hospital in December, and left Hong Kong on sick leave 20 July 1890, not to return until 26 October 1891. Alarakia, the second assistant for over five years, left in December 1889 to take up a position elsewhere paying more than twice what he was getting from the government. So the director had a taxing time in trying to keep up the Observatory’s performance. And indeed he couldn’t. The time-ball service was suspended from the beginning of the New Year until 7 July. From then until the end of 1890 it operated sporadically, with some assistance from a Mr. T. K. Dealy,47 a master at Victoria (Queen’s) College, but the arrangement appears not to have lasted very long. Although Dealy’s interests were in Chinese language and geography, he taught physics at the College of Medicine for some time. Since the time-ball service was the primary duty for which the Observatory was established and a service which had been very satisfactory from the point of view of the public — it was the only aspect about which there had never been any complaints — this course of action could not be taken lightly. A letter writer, ‘LUX’, in the China Mail in February 1890 complained, observing that ‘it is a scandalous shame that public work should thus be left undone’.48 In his annual report for 1890 the director claimed that ‘the dropping of the time-ball is the duty of the First Assistant. The natives are useless for such work’, remarks that the gossip columnist in the Mail thought did ‘not seem to be in very good taste’.49 These views can be seen as an expression of racist aspects pervasive in colonial servants of the day, as well as Doberck’s undoubted arrogance, but it is easy to sneer at what we now see as the simplicity of such prejudice, and forget the near total absence of scientific sensibilities, even in educated youths of the time, beyond Europe and North America. Stories are told of how, in India, rain gauges were taken indoors and locked up every night, or how an enterprising up-country observer simply turned back the pages of his records and repeated the observations of a previous year — his leisured deceit rendered almost undetectable.50


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Doberck, of course, did not have to contend with remote observers, and one can be sure that very little in the way of deception would have escaped his attention, and he could, rarely, offer compliments. On the other hand, however, he can certainly be faulted for taking no initiative to educate ‘natives’ to the standards he insisted on, a course of action which was so successfully pursued in similar circumstances in Japan at the time by the yatoi. It cannot be said that the Jesuits at Zikawei were much more progressive in these matters. Writing of his five Chinese assistants in 1904, the director Fr. Froc said that they ‘would never be more than aides of a lower degree; it is useless to think of giving them one of the services to direct’.51 Alarakia’s replacement as second assistant, one J. B. Eça da Silva, took up position in early January 1890. Doberck soon made his dissatisfaction with the new recruit’s performance into a major issue, with all the exchanges with the colonial government being sent off to London for adjudication.52 The Colonial Office simply acknowledged them, but with one official minuting along the way: ‘Dr Doberck is a most ill conditioned man and I have no doubt that this poor man found it impossible to work under him’. Dr. Doberck had filed a list of five complaints, essentially of incompetence, and the poor man was hauled before the Executive Council, no less, to answer the charges. Failing, in their presence, to accurately read a Vernier scale, the councillors found in favour of the director, but thought the matter not serious enough for suspension and offered Eça da Silva a lesser post. This, the second assistant declined, and resigned his post. Before the proceedings against him had finished Eça da Silva had been sent away from the Observatory by Doberck, and for some of the time held a sick leave certificate, but he was entitled to draw his salary, something the director refused to authorize. This led to further conflict between Doberck and his superiors; witness a letter to him from the colonial secretary: your reply can only be regarded as evasive and unsatisfactory and the Officer Administering the Government views with regret [officialese for ‘castigates’] your action in appending to the certificate at the foot of Mr Eça da Silva’s pay sheet for March the words ‘By order of His Excellency the Administrator’ unauthorized as they are by any directions given by His Excellency.53

This was followed a month later by a minute of the administrator: I think that Mr Eça da Silva must receive his pay for April and as Dr Doberck considers that he cannot conscientiously sign the certificate for this month more than he can for March the money must be paid without it. I can only say that it is a very serious thing for the Head of a Department, more particularly so when a medical certificate is produced, to decline to certify that a subordinate is entitled to the pay he should receive.54


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That so much was made of such a small matter may, in part, be a reflection of the insecurity of the then officer in charge of the government, F. Fleming, in the face of the confrontational director, but it is also an illustration of Doberck’s uncompromising relation with his superiors and a rare contradiction of the often assumed facelessness of colonial servants. The position of second assistant was finally filled by promoting one of the clerks, Ho To-shang, later in the year; he would stay with the Observatory for a further ten years. Some further relief was promised by the government’s agreement to accept the staffing recommendations of the 1890 commission’s report, although it was to be a full year after the report’s publication before the addition of a chief assistant in 1891 (senior to the existing first assistant F. G. Figg,) and a further thirteen months before the arrival of the director’s own sister, Anna Doberck, as an assistant meteorologist, who could relieve the director of some of the routine work.

A Chief Assistant: New Astronomical Opportunities One might suspect that, following the commissioners’ recommendations of the appointment of a chief assistant, it was not an accident that the person chosen, John Isaac Plummer, was also an astronomer of some competence, and that Doberck engineered such a selection. A fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1876, Plummer had worked at Glasgow Observatory, Durham Observatory and Orwell Park Observatory in England before his arrival in Hong Kong, and had led a government astronomical expedition to Bermuda to study the transit of Venus in 1882. He published, among other things, a text book, Introduction to Astronomy, in 1872, and held an honorary MA from the University of Durham. On the face of it, Doberck’s hand would not seem to have swayed this choice. The prescribed form detailing the position, signed by the director, sent to the Colonial Office, simply specified for qualifications that they be ‘the same as for an Assistant Astronomer in the British Isles’ and that the selection should be made by the astronomer royal. However, in a letter three years later he reveals that he had been in contact with the astronomer royal, ‘Mr Plummer was selected according to my own suggestion for his fitness as an assistant astronomer’.55 Against this account we have to set a letter from Doberck to the astronomer royal in early December 1890, in which he had suggested one C. E. Engelenburg from Utrecht for the post.56 Engelenburg, who had overseas working experience, had been an assistant to C. H. D. Buys Ballot, the distinguished Dutch meteorologist, and he may have been responsible for introducing him to Doberck. In view of the controversy surrounding Doberck’s own appointment it is likely that another ‘outsider’ was not looked upon favourably and Engelenburg features nowhere else in the appointment process. Christie, the astronomer


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royal, also already had several other informal approaches about the position, including one on behalf of Plummer, and reported that ‘he is not of an uneven or irritable temper’57 — no doubt making a contrast with the candidate he had recommended eight years earlier — and that as ‘Mr Plummer seems such a good man for the post’ he did not think any advertisement necessary. This was not the only submission to the Colonial Office that Plummer had in his support. There were personal letters to Lord Knutsford, the secretary of state for the colonies, from, among others, the marquess of Bristol and Lord Colville of Culross.58 The marquess said how he met Plummer while: staying with the late Col. Tomline who kept a ‘tame’ astronomer about the place … he seemed a very respectable, pleasant man, … anxious to do anything for a living being a candidate for a mastership of a Union House in Essex! I should be glad if I heard in the future that he could keep to his congenial pursuits at Hong Kong.

Lord Colville, who apparently had earlier canvassed Lord Knutsford unsuccessfully for a position for Plummer in Jamaica, explained how Plummer came to be out of a job as a result of the heir to Orwell Park not wishing to continue with his late uncle’s interest in astronomy. He continued: ‘I have always understood that he is quite at the top of his profession, and when [at Orwell Park] the Greenwich authorities used to borrow him. … I should be very glad if you could help him’. Plummer was appointed, his appointment noted in The Observatory.59 John Isaac Plummer (Fig. 8) was born at Deptford in Kent, 5 February 1845.60 He started his career as an assistant astronomer at the Glasgow Observatory where he worked for about two years. In 1868 he moved to the Durham Observatory, where he was to spend the best part of six years. He worked mostly on comets, and while there published his student text, Introduction to Astronomy. Durham University awarded him an honorary MA degree before he left, in June 1874, to take up the position of astronomer at a private observatory established in that year by a Colonel Tomline. Tomline was a somewhat eccentric entrepreneur, wealthy enough to cultivate an amateur interest in astronomy by furnishing a very well-equipped observatory at his home at Nacton, near Ipswich. Although there was an aspect of assuaging Tomline’s vanity in this venture, Plummer took a very professional approach to his new position, and carried out a systematic programme of observations. He submitted annual reports on the observatory to the Royal Astronomical Society.61 His main interest was in comets, and in the sixteen years he spent at the observatory studied forty-three examples. His work is cited sixty-one times by Gary W. Kronk in his compendium Cometography, against a total of fourteen citations for Doberck.62 His recognition by the astronomical establishment is attested to by his participation in the programme to observe the transit of Venus in December 1882, travelling to Bermuda for the


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observations. He also investigated the Aurora Borealis using a spectroscope, one of the earliest observers to take this approach. A list of his publications is given in Appendix C. His competence as an astronomer is not in doubt.

Fig. 8. John Isaac Plummer in later life. By kind permission of Richard Bellamy-Brown.

Orwell Park Observatory did not outlive its enthusiastic founder and Plummer, at the age of forty-six, found himself in want of a new position; he must have considered himself lucky that a suitable position arose in the colonies. Admittedly the position was not advertised, but it could not have been a secret in the narrow meteorological/astronomical community, so it is likely that the salary of $2160 that was offered (Plummer, before he became unemployed, was on $1800 a year with a house provided) for such a hardship posting was not enough to entice competition from staff of the government observatories, as Governor Bowen some years before had encouraged. So yet another import from a private observatory was appointed — another candidate with no great credentials in meteorology. Plummer had only two publications in meteorology to his name. These were written eighteen years earlier, dealing with the recording of thermometer readings under different circumstances and the estimation of an average monthly temperature. They do not show a very discriminating approach to the subject.63 On the other hand, the new position, for Plummer, was a major coming-down in the world, and not only financially, from someone who had been in the custom of submitting annual reports on his observatory to the Royal


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Astronomical Society to someone who, as we shall see under Dr. Doberck’s direction, was expected to clean the time-ball. Accompanied by his wife and three children, a boy and two girls, the new senior assistant arrived from London, via Singapore, on the SS Glenorchy on 1 May 1891.64 Considering the emphasis everywhere Observatory matters were discussed was on improvements in meteorology and forecasting, the choice of Plummer can only be described as cavalier. From the lack of any comment on it, it would seem that the regular letter writers to the press had no access to details of the hiring process, although the columnist ‘Brownie’ in the China Mail observed of Dr. Doberck’s report for 1890 that: ‘the sole recommendation that he gave for his Chief Assistant is that he is favourably know for his observations of comets. … Mr. Plummer is said to be a practical man, and perhaps he will deem it his duty to observe and take note of something more than comets and stars during his service in Hongkong’.65 It seems clear that Doberck welcomed the news of the identity of his new assistant; although probably not known to him personally, there was some interaction in the past. Plummer had referred to Doberck’s work in some of his early papers. Later in the published literature the director lauds Plummer on several occasions for his observational skill, but their relationship was far from as smooth as that would suggest and his chief assistant, as we will see, in many respects turned out to be a disappointment.66

An Assistant Meteorologist: A Difficult Appointment If the director’s choice in a chief assistant would lead to some disappointment, the outcome of his choice for a meteorological assistant, if somewhat slower in meeting with official approval, turned out to be as he wished, his sister Anna. In a letter to the government justifying proposing his sister — referring to the fact that she had a B.A. from the University of Copenhagen (Danish universities admitted women from 1875) and at the time was furthering her studies in ‘higher mathematics’ in that city — he pointed out that all the staff at the Durham Observatory except the director were ladies, and that the government astronomer at Madras had his wife as chief assistant and his daughter as meteorological assistant. In further support he might also have referred to Fritsche’s report of how in the early 1870s two female observers recorded the temperature at the remote station at Urga, in Mongolia.67 As we have seen, Anna had been his assistant in Ireland for about a year. Starbuck implies that she had already been helping him (domestically, and earlier?) in Hong Kong, but, as we see, her brother places her in Copenhagen at the time of the application, December 1891. To restrict the competition — he quoted a salary of only $1000 per year, earlier having suggested $1680 as a suitable figure — he specified as


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qualifications for candidates an ‘acquaintance with the mathematical theories of meteorology including either Ferrel’s68 or Mohn’s69 treatises’. In further making a case for her employment, her brother noted her qualifications: a knowledge of the calculus up to and including the rudiments of partial differential equations, the usual theoretical knowledge of physics with several semesters course of practical physics, the elements of astronomy, … She has a profound knowledge of meteorology;70

and observed how: it is important that I should have somebody living with me who would be at my beck and call any hour of the day or night [!].

Against which, in the margin, someone at the Colonial Office penned: ‘this is cheerful for his sister’. Presumably keen to get her started, he suggested that the governor might make the appointment provisionally as ‘there is no chance of the Secretary of State refusing to confirm the appointment’. This the governor declined to do, and it is hardly a surprise that the appointment was not so automatic in the Colonial Office and took quite some time — in fact there was more discussion on this minor appointment than on any other pertaining to the Observatory. There were different viewpoints on the issue. For one thing they could not verify her qualifications, one official minuting: ‘I expect it was at a German or Austrian University, as her brother uses the non-English word “semester” …’; another: ‘we have nothing beyond her brother’s word to prove her qualifications, and I think he should have been asked by the Gov. to give references to some known astronomers or provide her testimonials or certificates in support of the statements made on her behalf’.71 They wrote to Sir Robert Ball at Dunsink; however he could only say that he knew little about the lady, but that at Sligo she had conducted the meteorological work, and: ‘as I understood acquitted herself with considerable credit. … I do not see any reason to doubt that her brother’s recommendation may be implicitly relied on’.72 He also suggested that Doberck’s fellow countryman, Dreyer at Armagh, be consulted, although he did not think that the two men had kept up much correspondence since Doberck went to Hong Kong. Dreyer, however, was even less helpful, saying: ‘I have not the least idea as to what education she has received or what qualifications she may possess for the post’. Apart from her formal qualifications there were other considerations. One of the decision makers observed that ‘Dr D asked in 1883 that his “housekeeper” [sic] might be appointed one of his assistants but that was disallowed’ but thought that ‘there need however be no objection to his sister being appointed and seeing that he is a difficult man for the other people to get on with … there is considerable advantage in selecting his sister’. The issue brought out the conflict between the pragmatic and the legalistic in the Colonial Office. Some


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officials thought a definite appointment should not be made until she provided the required certificates. The pragmatic was represented by R. Meade, who saw definite merit in her appointment, minuting: ‘I should appoint the lady. The Dr. is a most difficult and queer man to live with but there may be a chance for the brother and sister to agree. The qualifications described [in] his letter seem amply sufficient’. Another senior official, C. P. Lucas, thought: ‘this lady ought not to be appointed for what practically amounts to “pending Dr Doberck’s pleasure”. It creates a bad precedent, it gives a difficult office a little additional importance which is not desirable, and it makes her entirely dependent on him’. To this Meade retorted: ‘I didn’t want to give importance to Dr. D. but to provide for the case if when Dr. D goes we may have to give her [illegible] terms in order to get rid of her. Appoint her for a term of 3 years, renewable if desired’.73 In the end this advice was accepted, and in a dispatch of 26 February 1892 Anna — ‘Typhoon Annie’ — was appointed, initially conditional on her brother remaining director! Miss Doberck took passage on the Norddeutscher Lloyd’s Nűrnberg from Bremen and arrived in Hong Kong 11 June 1892. She stayed at the Observatory until retirement in April 1915.

Miss Anna Doberck We know very little of Anna Doberck as a person — no photograph of her seems to have survived — but she was to have a twenty-four-year spell as a meteorologist in Hong Kong, and is one of the very few female meteorologists on record from those times. Born on 16 January 1858 in Copenhagen, and thus seven years younger than her brother, she seems not to have had his prickly personality. Her tenure, compared to his, seems largely uneventful, although it was the cause of a tart response in 1898 when he requested that she be provided with accommodation. That was denied with: the Officer Administering the Government fails to see any reason for the use of the inappropriate and objectionable word ‘scandalous’ in your minute under reference.

For about a year in 1874–75 she had assisted her brother in the Markree Observatory in Ireland when he was the superintendent there. Her brother acknowledged her efforts in his report to the Royal Astronomical Society for 1875,74 and in some of his publications.75 Although she appears not to have completed the ‘Essay on the Climate of Ireland’ that Monsignor O’Rorke claimed she was working on,76 the ‘profound knowledge of meteorology’ that her brother attributed to her in his letter of support was probably more than simple fraternal exaggeration. It seems that prior to taking up the appointment she


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was registered as a doctoral candidate, probably in meteorology, at Copenhagen University, because the Danish women’s magazine Kvinden og Samfun-det in 1882 in noting her appointment to the position in Hong Kong described her as a female meteorologist, Ph.D. student and daughter of the artistic welder, Doberck of Copenhagen.77 The first female doctorate in Denmark graduated in 1887 and the first Ph.D. awarded anywhere to a woman in meteorology was in the United States and that not until as late as 1949.78 If she had not gone East Anna might have made history. Her appointment was also noted in Nature, where she was misidentified as Dr. Doberck’s daughter.79 However, perhaps had those who thought it more prudent to first enquire from Hong Kong further details of her qualifications had their way, things might not have gone so smoothly. Where was her B.A. degree from? In an early draft, possibly not sent, her brother had written: ‘She was my first Assistant in Sligo … she is a B.A. of the University of Copenhagen where she is at present studying higher mathematics’.80 Why did he omit this specific information in the later application? Danish universities admitted females from 1875, but the first female graduate at the University of Copenhagen, in medicine, was not until 1885 — admittedly early enough for Anna, who in that year would have been twentyseven, to have acquired a B.A. But according to the University of Copenhagen in-house historian no information about Anna Doberck can be located in the university records, and she did not graduate from that university, which did not have a B.A. degree in the nineteenth century. But, records are records, and against this we have to place the report in Kvinden og Samfun-det, the fact that she herself in communications with the government claimed to have a B.A. degree, and her account of celebrating her student days. The latter occurs in a letter she wrote in 1913 from Copenhagen while on leave, to Claxton (the director) in which she relates how she had received an ‘invitation to my own jubilee as a citizen of the University of Copenhagen’.81 She relates how, at the dinner, she and her confrères conversed just as they had done twenty-five years before. This places the year at 1888, but why the ‘citizen’ rather than graduate? We must assume that, as the in-house historian informs us, there was no B.A. degree but that she used the expression as being equivalent to the qualification to which she felt entitled. There is a conundrum here, not the least part of which is why William did not mention the fact that her ongoing studies of the ‘higher mathematics’ were as a doctoral candidate, possibly in meteorology, at Copenhagen University. She did maintain, in an application for a salary raise ten years after her arrival, that she possessed the B.A. degree, and that she was able to converse in French, German, English, Danish ‘and the other Northern languages, which knowledge has been of material assistance in the carrying out of my duties’.82 Whatever her credentials, Anna proved a valuable addition to the Observatory staff, and played a professional role in its activities.


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6 Typhoon Studies Typhoons of such violence as really to present uncomfortable features to people on shore are almost unknown in China. Doberck, Law of Storms, 2nd edition

A Rejuvenated Institution In this chapter we will take a look at the situation at the Observatory and its achievements over the first fifteen years or so of its existence, in particular its role in the study of typhoons, with a diversion for some more scandal en route. Figg, during his leave found a wife, one Frances Maria Cole, whom he married at Newton Abbot, in Devon, in the late summer of 1891, and in late October, accompanied by his new wife, returned per SS Glenshiel from London, after almost two years’ sick leave. So, by the spring of 1892 the augmented staff who would conduct the affairs of the Observatory for the next twenty years or so were in position. The community could have anticipated a less fractious institution and improved storm warning services. Satisfaction on either account, however, was not to be so readily found. For one thing, relations within the Observatory itself were strained. Plummer, who, as we noted, was already forty-six, and eight years older than Doberck, took up his position on 1 May 1891, but, to quote a later Colonial Office minute, ‘it was evident that Dr Doberck did not hit it off with Mr Plummer’.1 Within six months of Plummer’s arrival, in October 1891 we have the colonial secretary writing to Doberck: I am to inform you that His Excellency trusts that you, as Head of the Department in which you are both working, will find the means of placing your relations with Mr Plummer on a more satisfactory footing.2


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No doubt this was not unrelated to a letter Plummer had sent to the director at the beginning of the month, which included: in connection with cleaning the time ball apparatus … is a disgustingly dirty job even for a Chinese Coolie and in consequence I must decline to undertake the cleaning myself. Indeed I am surprised that you should have asked me to do such work … you ask me to undertake the testing of currents which is work I am unfamiliar with, as you are perfectly aware.3

Doberck made his unhappiness with his new assistant even more clear in a letter to Christie, the astronomer royal, in November 1891, where he wrote: Mr Plummer has turned out to be a most incompetent man, no friend of science in general and a particular enemy of this observatory. He has been very troublesome and his conduct has been ungentlemanly. Were it not that he was selected by yourself and so warmly received by me, the consequences might have been deplorable.4

The logic of the final sentence is none too clear, but some rapprochement between the director and Plummer did occur. Doberck later took advantage of Plummer’s ability as an astronomer, and commended his work. Some further drama befell Plummer before he had been in position for a year, when he was required to appear in the Magistrate’s Court on 29 December 1891, where his cook and houseboy were accused of attempting to poison two of his children, by feeding them soup laced with some unknown substance for dinner, while the rest of the family were out. Samples of the soup, along with some ‘powder found in an unused fireplace in the house’, were produced and the two men were remanded for a week.5 Nothing more is heard of the case. The columnist ‘Brownie’ in the China Mail in June 1892, reviewing the director’s report for the previous year noted that the work of Mr. Plummer, his chief assistant, is not mentioned from one end of the report to the other.6 Plummer, who, as we have noted, was a respectably published astronomer before he arrived in Hong Kong (see Appendix C), was given no opportunity to continue with such activity while at the Observatory, and his only publication there, a year before his retirement, was a twenty-seven-page pamphlet on the origin of typhoons.7 In forwarding Doberck’s annual report for 1890 to London the officer administering the government remarked that ‘Dr Doberck is in error in stating generally that the suggestions of the Commission had not been carried out, all with one exception (that of the Peak Observatory) having been adopted or being in the course of implementation’.8 In fact, Doberck, in the published report, mentions only the issue of the Peak Observatory, declared necessary by the commission. The government’s early agreement (under the stewardship of Major-General Digby Barker) to the expense of two additional expatriate appointments was


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fortunate for Doberck, because the new governor, William Robinson, who arrived in December 1891, showed no enthusiasm for the Observatory.9 In response to a question in the Legislative Council in the following May on the status of plans to establish a branch observatory on the Peak, the colonial secretary replied that ‘the Government has no intention of establishing such a branch observatory at present, nor, if at all, until other public works of more pressing importance have been completed’.10 No doubt, among the works of pressing importance he had in mind was the rebuilding on the Peak of the governor’s residence, Mountain Lodge, which was being considered at the time. That project on the Peak was completed, but no more is heard of a branch of the Observatory there, data only being collected by a signalman. Robinson even tried to backtrack on the allowance already paid to the Observatory. He commended to the secretary of state, for his approval, a recommendation from the Legislative Council that for the coming year (1893) that allowance should be reduced by $4000 (the existing budget was about $13,000), explaining that the Observatory ‘is now to a great extent occupied by observations of no particular importance to the Colony’.11 If not in Hong Kong, Doberck, we find, did have some friends elsewhere. The marquess of Ripon rejected the suggestion, as he did most of the other suggestions Robinson made for cutting back salaries, writing: I would remind you that the staff of the Observatory was recently increased on the recommendation of, and after exhaustive enquiry by, a local Committee. I should therefore in any case be opposed to making a reduction in the establishment at the present time; moreover valuable work appears to have been done by this office, the importance of which in the eyes of the Astronomer Royal may be gauged from the enclosed letter, [unseen] and I am not prepared to admit that this work is of a kind which is of no special value to the colony itself.12

The Study of Typhoons Despite the perceived friction in the Observatory, internal and external, there were some achievements in the field of meteorology. The year 1890 saw the publication of the second edition of Doberck’s Law of Storms, still without the imprint of the Observatory, and here is an appropriate point at which to look into his contribution to meteorology. His lack of relations with the Jesuit observatories can also be seen in part as a reflection of the marginal intellectual role he assigned to the subject. His publications in meteorology are included in Appendix D. Only the topic of typhoons captured his interest, and only his Law of Storms could claim any great attention, mainly for its classification scheme for typhoons. But before assessing Doberck’s contributions to this subject we will look at the historical framework in which it was made.


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Earliest Studies of China Sea Typhoons Typhoons are a major meteorological phenomenon in the China Sea. If we extend the area slightly to include all of the North West Pacific, an average of about twenty-seven occur annually, about three times as many as the number of hurricanes per year in west Atlantic/Caribbean waters. From an early time, the Chinese made a distinction between a tornado, yangjiao13 and a typhoon, jufeng.14 The tendency in the Chinese historical records to emphasize extreme events means that these records are not an unreliable account of the occurrence of typhoons. Already at the beginning of the twentieth century Fr. Froc, at Zikawei, from a study of annals extending from 978 to 1811 was able to produce a frequency per month curve of typhoons occurring in Fujian over the year. A comparison with a recent set of observations taken over ten years shows a clear parallel between the frequency curves.15 Later, more intensive searches in the written records have revealed a wealth of information on the frequency and intensity of typhoons, especially South China Sea typhoons striking the Guangdong coast.16 Of course, an after-the-event summary of such storms gives little understanding of their origins, not to mention a method for their prognostication, nor how ships should be navigated in their presence. The earliest traceable description of a typhoon, jufeng, seems to be from China, a passage in the great encyclopedia, the Taiping Yulan of 983, where the fearsomeness of the phenomena is emphasized, and it is reported that for three days before the storm’s arrival roosters and dogs fell silent. This, however, is an excerpt from a fifth-century book, the Nanyue Zhi, which is now lost.17 Several references to jufeng also occur in Tang poetry. One imagines that the Ming explorer Zheng He in his seven journeys to the Indian Ocean in the early fifteenth century encountered a typhoon, and would surely have written it up in a log. Unfortunately it appears that if any such logs were kept they were officially destroyed when such exploration fell out of favour at court. Brief accounts in the Ming Shi list places visited by Zheng He, and some details of the countries visited exist, but they give no information on the weather at sea.18 Fragmentary accounts from other sailors, which can be interpreted as relating to typhoons, exist, notably one from the Berber explorer Ibn Batuta on a journey from Xiamen to Sumatra in 1348. Two hundred years later, a Portuguese Dominican priest described the damage done by a typhoon around Macao in the summer of 1556,19 and there were Western sailors’ reports of encountering typhoons, in the Pacific on the run from Acapulco to the Philippines, and in the China Seas, from which their gross properties were known. A reliable account has been given by a Portuguese pilot on a ship from Macao to Nagasaki in July 1585, which encountered such a storm off Taiwan.20 A later pre-instrumental


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account in English that attracted some attention was that by the English buccaneer and explorer William Dampier, whose use of the word ‘tuffoons’ was responsible for current English usage. In the summer of 1687 Dampier arrived off the Guangdong coast, and dropped anchor at St. John’s Island (Sancian). On 3 July, seeing evidence of a storm coming he put to sea and on the following day was hit by a typhoon — he was apparently the first to use the English word. He took in all his sails, and for the next five days was helpless, at the mercy of the storm. He recounts the passage of the calm, and the mountainous seas he encountered, and the opinion of all the crew that it was the greatest storm they had ever experienced.21 He seems to have agreed with their opinion on the role of the moon in such occurrences, writing that ‘they thought of going somewhere to shelter before the full moon for fear of another such storm’. Following efforts to understand such storms in other parts of the world, their behaviour in Far Eastern waters only came to be seriously studied in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although storms have been recorded as far south as Labuan, at 5°N latitude, they, in general, are only found farther north (or south) than about 15°. In the absence of any land-based observatories in that part of the world before about 1865 all such compilations were at second hand, based as they were on the reports in ships’ logs, and accounts of ships’ captains who had experienced them. It is not then too surprising that the charts of the time show some deficiencies when compared with later summaries. The earliest work on meteorology in the South China Sea, Meyen’s 1835 book Bemerkungen über die klimatischen Verhältnisse des südlichen Chinas makes almost no mention of typhoons, noting only that they were rare outside August and September. The initiative in their study in these waters was taken by Henry Piddington, president of the Marine Courts of Enquiry at Calcutta; he was the author of the earliest version of a Law of Storms. Piddington, from 1839, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, began a series of over twenty memoirs on the behaviour of storms. These were mostly confined to the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, but in 1842 he dared to devote an article to storms in the China Seas. Calcutta was a long way from the China Coast, but he had petitioned the Court of Directors of the East India Company for the supply of such archived material as they held on past storms encountered by their ships on the India-to-China run. He received in return a large mass of documents relating to observations in the China Sea. Based on his study of this material, and on communications with some of the ships’ captains, he confirmed conclusively that the storms encountered there were of the same nature as the hurricanes known in the West Indies. He eventually laid out tracks for storms over a period ranging from 1780 to 1847. Apart from providing results on the monthly frequencies of their occurrence, he concluded that many of


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these storms originated to the east of Luzon and deduced the general motion of storms from south-east to north-west, but he also found examples that swung south. Not much of the data available to him was from passages in the northern parts of the China Sea, but he did note rare examples — two cases — of what we would now call recurvature, storms moving north-eastwards.22 Reid, in his book, the Law of Storms of 1849, devotes a chapter to typhoons in the China Sea, but most of it is a presentation, and in many cases a re-analysis, of the storms described by Piddington.23 Like Piddington, Reid, a fellow of the Royal Society, also had no direct experience of Far Eastern waters, as most of his experience of such storms was in the West Indies. MacGowan devotes much of his 1853 book published at Ningbo to typhoons, for which he uses the term jufeng, and the management of ships in their presence. He noted that they often arise in the period from several days before the beginning of the fifth month to several days after the end of the tenth month — presumably he meant lunar months as the audience he addressed would not have been very familiar with the solar calendar. He was aware that Chinese sailors had systematized precursor warning signals for such storms but did not discuss them. He did not presume that his readers would be familiar with the barometer — he was writing less than ten years after the invention of the aneroid barometer — but in his final chapter he did explain the operation of a mercury barometer, using chi and cun as the units of height (quoting the standard value as a height of 2chi 4cun).24 In the absence of information on the pressure he sought to explain how the sea conditions and, especially, the wind pattern during the particular time of year could be used as a basis for avoiding danger. Following Reid, he advised how, in the northern hemisphere, the sailor should keep the wind on his starboard side to avoid the centre. All of his advice was predicated on the assumption that the storms were travelling from southeast to north-west, the most common track for South China Sea typhoons, and subject to that assumption he presented a very instructive diagram of his own making, showing the good and bad tracks to take in a typical typhoon in those parts.25 He also, with an elaboration on Reid’s account, related, with illustrations, several recorded incidents of ships that had survived typhoons off the Guangdong coast, and the lessons to be learned from the individual incidents. As his last figure in the book he presents a chart of typhoon tracks in the South China Sea (see Fig. 9). Unlike the other figures, he assigns it no number and makes no mention of it in the text. It would seem to have been included as an afterthought. This chart does not appear in the book by Reid which he claimed as the source of most of his work, and would appear to be based on a compilation of the tracks published by Piddington. It is informative on such storms, but is totally lacking in the many storms which recurve and head for Korea and Japan.


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Typhoon tracks as presented by MacGowan in 1853.

The only other publication on the meteorology of China in that period was the substantial work by Fritsche, published in 1877, already noted. Stationed at Peking, his experience of typhoons was presumably nil, his information on them was rather limited, and he devotes only two pages to the topic. On the basis of data, of unspecified origin but almost certainly that of Piddington,


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whom he does not mention, for the period of 1780 to 1845 he gave a monthly frequency of occurrence. He concluded that in the China Sea ‘typhoons occur comparatively seldom, namely, during the year less than once’.26 Although he gave extensive summaries of the prevailing winds over East Asia throughout the year, he presented only three rudimentary tracks of typhoons. All three originated to the east of Manila, and moved in the sector SE to NW, but he was aware of instances of recurvature near Taiwan. Japan often turns out to be the target of a China Sea typhoon, and a major one struck Kobe in July 1871, when more than four hundred lives were reported lost. The notions of meteorological science in the country at the time, at least according to a correspondent in Nature, however, were quite elementary.27 He quoted from an illustrated news-sheet circulating in Tokyo in the aftermath of the storm which claimed that 700,000 large and small boats were thrown ashore, and attributed the phenomenon to ‘the commingling of the female and male elements, and the contention of wind and rain’, and bemoaned the fact that ‘not even can the influence of the gods of Buddah prevail to govern them’. Japan, however, was beginning to come on the scene of meteorological research at this time, but they did not yet have access to extensive data. Knipping in Tokyo, as we noted in Chapter 1, started to present meteorological observations from 1872 onwards and contributed much to the study of typhoons, but the earliest track of such a storm in the north seems to be an account of a typhoon off Japan by one M. v. B. in December 1874.28 The storm had passed to the south of the islands on the previous 10 July, and the author had access to some ships’ logs, and presented the local track of the storm, see Fig. 10. Knipping did start to make serious studies of typhoons, and wrote two detailed accounts of storms of 1878 and 1880 — it is of interest that all this early German work uses imperial units, miles, inches, degrees Fahrenheit.29 His first major contribution was the construction of the track for a typhoon which reached the neighbourhood of Japan on 20 September 1878 — earlier than Dechevrens, who is usually credited with the earliest such construction in those parts. His work was based on logs from seventeen ships and reports from the Tokyo, Nagasaki and Zikawei observatories. He tracked the storm from latitude 19°N ESE of Taiwan, moving northwest until longitude 127°E where it swung north, parallel to the China Coast until it reached near Quelpart (Jeju) and then moved northeast through the Korea Straits, to beyond latitude 37°N. The earliest belief was that the winds in a typhoon were tangential to circles around the centre. On this assumption, when facing the wind, in the northern hemisphere, the centre of the storm would be 90° (8 points) to the right. By this time, however, it was realized that the winds were not circular in general, but made an angle with the radial direction that was usually larger than 90°, i.e. having an inward component. This angle depends both on the distance from the


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Fig. 10. An early typhoon track off Japan as presented by M. v. B. in 1874.

centre, and on whether one is located in the forward or backward quadrants of the storm, where the quadrants are defined by the axis of motion of the centre, and in places can be less than 90°. Knipping’s second major study was of a very damaging typhoon that swept through the Japanese islands on 25–26 August 1880. He had records from nineteen ships, thirty-three Japanese lighthouses, and seven land stations, including an observer in the Ryukyus where he believed the typhoon originated. Knipping was not alone in Japan in these studies; the director of Tokyo University’s physics laboratory, T. C. Mendenhall, published a summary account of a typhoon that struck the city in October 1880.30 When, in 1878, Fr. Faura took over as director in Manila he immediately immersed himself in the study of typhoons, and thus was the first on-the-scene investigator of the phenomenon in the South China Sea. Through his familiarity with the work of his fellow Jesuit Fr. Vines in the Havana Observatory, who is credited with the first successful forecasting of a typhoon trajectory in 1875, he realized that he was dealing with essentially the same phenomenon that had been more widely studied in the Antilles, and of which the American


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meteorologist Redfield had given an account. Faura had some telegraphic communication with other observers in the islands, and from July of 1879 he started issuing storm warnings at Manila. His timely warning of the approach of major typhoons on two occasions later in the year greatly raised the prestige of the Observatory. In December 1879 he also reported a very violent storm which struck Cebu and the Visayas, but had a diameter less than sixty nautical miles. His success in forecasting the arrival of typhoons was quickly recognized, and in 1882 he published the first account of typhoons in the Far East that was based on first-hand knowledge. Among the Philippine items on exhibit at a Universal Colonial Exhibition in Amsterdam in 1883 was a chart of the tracks of typhoons recorded by the Observatory in 1879–82. Faura’s data sources, however, were very limited: apart from his own observations he just had the reports of some observers at the different telegraph stations in the archipelago. The most influential of these indigenous systematic tracking of typhoons in the China Seas was the study by Marc Dechevrens at Zikawei of a storm in July 1879.31 The publication at Shanghai of this work, as we have seen in chapter 1, catalyzed the coordination of meteorological recording on the China Coast. Fr. Dechevrens, in a very scholarly presentation, showed how he could progressively build up the trajectory of the storm. For this he used data he collected from a wide spectrum of sources. These included fifteen land-based stations, ranging from Manila to Taiwan to the Customs Stations, and including Japanese government observatories as well as missionary observatories in North China. In addition he had data from sixteen ships in the area and from nine light-houses along the China Coast. The results may be seen in Fig. 11, where the storm is tracked from Meiaco-sima in the Southern Ryukyus group to the Saddle Islands, skirting Shanghai passing on to Shenyang in Liaodong. People in Shanghai at the time were impressed by the definitiveness of the study, and began to see the Jesuit observatory as a reliable focus for such studies, and a possible source of practical storm warnings, an aspect we have already seen. From then onward the Zikawei Observatory would produce storm paths for many typhoons. Among the storms that Dechevrens mapped out the following year, 1880, was one that Knipping also studied, mentioned earlier. In Fig. 12, where the dashed track is due to Knipping, we compare their derived trajectories. There is impressive agreement over much of the path, disagreement occurring at places furthest removed from their station, in the far north where the Japanese data is likely to be the more reliable, and in the south, where Knipping’s centring of the origin of the storm on the Ryukyus is surely misplaced.


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Fig. 11. Dechevrens’s trajectory for the storm of 31 July 1879.

Fig. 12. Dechevrens’s and Knipping’s (dashed) tracks for a typhoon in August 1880.


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Doberck’s Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas The study of typhoons in East Asia, as we have just seen, was not the clean slate that Doberck sought to portray when he began work on the subject. Within six months of the opening of the Observatory he began to publish, in the Government Gazette, his thinking on typhoons, the more important articles being a one-page ‘Notice to Mariners’ carried in the May 1885 issue, and a longer account in the July issue, by which time he had only experienced a few instances.32 This was expanded on in his publication in September 1886, The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas. As we have seen, the government would offer no support in publishing his researches, but the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph thought it a worthwhile document, printed it in full in his paper, and issued it as a pamphlet. It was also reprinted in Nature.33 With incremental revisions, it ran to four editions. The second edition was translated and published in Vienna in 1891,34 while the third edition was translated into German by the Austrian meteorologist, and director of the Bremen Meteorological Office, Dr. Paul Bergholz.35 Doberck claimed that the early edition was also translated into Japanese, very likely at Palmer’s initiative. Doberck’s work differs markedly from the several similarly titled books of the period, Law of Storms by Piddington, by Reid, and by others. It is much more concise, without the long rambling extracts from log-books which characterize the bulky works, and may very well have been welcomed by sea captains, as he claimed, on this account, although the reasons for the brevity were probably more the lack of funds for publishing a more detailed version. He was undoubtedly beholden to these earlier works, but he makes no acknowledgement of any sources, and presents the material as if it were entirely the result of his own researches. Notwithstanding the extravagant theoretical demands he made in 1891 on candidates for the assistant meteorologist post, he himself showed little interest in the theory of the phenomena, publishing only a note — in the Government Gazette, where few interested in the subject would see it.36 The pursuit of theoretical studies, per se, in the Observatory would have found little support in official quarters anyway, and could only have been at the expense of time the director would have preferred to devote to astronomy. Such studies could, of course, have thrown light on the practical matters he addressed, but at some remove. A phenomenological approach, combined with a mindfulness of the archived history of observed storms, could be more productive in foretelling future events. He only gives a brief account of the genesis of typhoons; whatever its intellectual importance it was a topic of no importance to the tasks in hand. Consonant with the ideas which were gaining ground at the time, he described the storms as arising in shallow, trough-like depressions over warm sea, at some distance from the equator, with the Coriolis effect due to the component of the


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earth’s rotation about the vertical giving rise to the circulatory motion.37 He said that the storms in the China Sea originated mainly in the seas east of the Philippines, and divided them into four categories according to the paths which they followed from there. On the steering of the typhoon, he said that it was ‘carried forward by the prevailing wind’. At the time, with so little information on atmospheric conditions available on a day-to-day basis, this was not very useful information. Rather he emphasized the information available from cloud formations, at considerable distance from the storm, and the sea swell, in determining the likely trajectory of a storm. The work was largely composed of information on the meteorological conditions at different distances from a typhoon, and instructions for sailors on how to navigate in such different conditions. At this stage he had access to daily data from eight stations (Manila, Bolinao, Haiphong, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Nagasaki and Vladivostok) and monthly reports from fifty land stations as well as log-books from ships calling. He claimed to have based his thesis on data from about forty typhoons he had studied over the previous three years, and included a chart of the tracks of nineteen of the principal typhoons in 1884 and 1885, but did not attach any identification to the individual tracks. He admitted that his credentials as a mariner were limited, ‘being possessed of no further knowledge of navigation than the little that can be gleaned from the inspection of logbooks and from occasional conversations with masters of vessels of many years standing’. He gave, quantitatively, the incurvature deviation of the wind from circular motion at different positions, and different latitudes, without acknowledging that the data might not have been his own. He also pointed out the necessity of allowing for the normal diurnal variations when assessing barometer readings. Overall, his description of the structure of a storm is quite exhaustive. He explained the storm warning signals he had ‘invented’ in 1884, and took the opportunity to complain of the budget of $6000 per annum allowed him, in contrast to the $10,000 initially suggested for an observatory, and how no further funds could be found to expand his little observatory into what he desired, a meteorological office for the Far East. Like the first edition, the second edition found no official favour; to quote the author: ‘the Government refused to publish my old pamphlet and as I am quite unwilling to make any money in that way myself I had no option but to give it for nothing to a private publisher who made thousands of dollars out of it for himself’.38 The second edition was published as a pamphlet, price $1, by the Hong Kong Telegraph in September 1890. Doberck was now receiving additional daily reports from Tokyo, Wenchow, Swatow, Anping (Taiwan), Canton, Macao and Hoihow (Hainan), and now had data on upward of a hundred typhoons. He revised slightly the information on the configuration of a typhoon, and was more sympathetic to some of them originating in the China Sea, in the


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neighbourhood of Palawan — his type I typhoons. He presented isobar maps, at 0.1 inch of mercury separation but without a distance scale, and wind patterns of two typhoons, and plotted the tracks of thirty-five additional storms. For ships’ captains he also added the surprising recommendation that if caught in the eye of a typhoon, where the sea swell is phenomenal and capsize the main threat to a ship, the captain should, literally, pour oil on troubled waters. The recommendation was that thick oil — mineral oil is no use — should be let ooze out of canvas bags half filled with cotton waste and slung from the weather-bow. It would be more effective, he said, if fired from the vessel towards approaching seas from mortars or rockets. More controversially he asserted that ‘typhoons of such violence as really to present uncomfortable features to people on shore are almost unknown in China’. This outrageous claim was dropped in later editions, and seems never to have been pounced upon by his many critics — surprisingly, in the aftermath of the disastrous typhoon that, as we shall see, struck Hong Kong unannounced in 1906. It may be that fewer people read his pamphlet than he was eager to claim. In the wake of the investigative commission’s report of 1890, which resulted in a doubling of his annual budget, he still complained of a lack of support, explaining that since ‘the work of a meteorological office, which is in itself many times greater than the work done in an observatory, was added without any provision, it ought not to cause surprise that it was found impossible to carry out the work without interruption of a more or less serious nature’. The third edition of the work, although not so identified, had some official approval, bearing the byline ‘Hong Kong Observatory’ and appearing first in the Hong Kong Government Gazette in 1898. It was later published as a fortytwo-page pamphlet by Noronha & Co., the government printers, at a price of one shilling. It contains a list of suggested safe harbours along the China Coast where sailors could find some shelter from a typhoon, and the contents of a short article he had published on winter typhoons in the southern part of the China Sea, but apart from a revision of his scheme for classifying typhoons, it does not otherwise differ greatly from the second edition.39 His revised scheme for typhoons entailed a subdivision of his four earlier classes into sub-classes, depending on the place of origin, original direction of motion and the time of year in which they originated. This yielded a total of nineteen sub-classes, some of which constituted only 1% of storms, and he gave a plot of the average tracks of each kind. A cursory inspection of the revision suggests an overly pedantic approach to the classification problem. A fourth edition was published in 1904, again by Noronha & Co., but it is almost identical to the third. It seems to have been prepared in a bit of a hurry, suggesting there was a demand for the work, as pages 42 and 43 simply reproduce the material on pages 38 and 39.


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The Opinion of Others But, one has to ask, to what extent did Doberck’s Law of Storms have any influence? He often boasted of how well it was regarded, but it is difficult to find much evidence for this. For example, writing to the colonial secretary in April 1899 he says: ‘thousands of copies have been sold … translated into foreign languages and the most despised portions have been issued by the American and German admiralties to their navies, [not the British Navy?] due credit being given to me’.40 Much later, in 1951, the Jesuit Fr. Ernesto Gherzi in his two volume Meteorology in China, although he gives no citation to Doberck in his extensive bibliography, does give him one complimentary mention in the text: ‘I cannot conclude these short notes [on recommended behaviour on ship in a typhoon] better than with the following extract from the pamphlet “The law of storms” by Dr. W. Doberck, the Hong Kong meteorologist of past years. “The master of a vessel … has often to undergo the vexation of seeing every manoeuvre of his, subjected to comments of those unaware of the hundreds of things he has to take into consideration, beside the law of storms and who were comfortably enscounced [sic] in their houses”.’41 In 1896 an anonymous review in the Liverpool Journal of Commerce of a paper on the management of ships in typhoons by Dr. Doberck which was read before the London Shipmasters’ Society (presumably not by Doberck personally) on 16 January, based on the second edition of his Law of Storms, on the following day was severely critical.42 The writer was fully acquainted with slurs Doberck had cast on his marine colleagues, the ‘nautical gentlemen’, in an investigative commission of 1893, to be described below, referring to them more than once, and may be assumed to be a less than neutral observer. To quote from the review: He [Doberck] objected to sit on a committee at Hong Kong because, forsooth, the shipmasters and officers of the Royal Navy, who were to act with him, were not meteorologists, in his opinion. Truly they have their day now; for the very worst enemy of Dr. Doberck could not have chosen a surer way to do him an injury than to suggest that he should treat on seamanship in a paper on typhoons. The very first sentence is open to question … .

The writer continued to ridicule Doberck’s ideas, finding some of them incomprehensible, claiming that ‘permanent, vertical, horizontal, and every other kind of magnetism; centre of gravity, metacentre, and stability, are mixed up in a delightful semblance of simplicity’, and predicting that his shipmaster adversaries at Hong Kong would never venture to follow ‘the dicta of the learned Doctor’.


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Despite the fact that Bergholz translated Doberck’s booklet in its third edition, in his own book of the same year on typhoons of the Orient43 he takes Fr. Algué’s publication at Manila44 as the basis for his work and makes little mention of Doberck’s contributions — perhaps, as some have alleged, because he seriously plagiarized Algué’s work, which had little mention of Doberck.45 The only attention Algué pays to Doberck’s work is to criticize the opinion expressed in it that only 3% of typhoons cross over the archipelago and enter the China Sea by parallels lower than the fifteenth moving to the west and westnorth-west. Whereas, over the four years 1895–98, 11% of those registered by his observatory he claimed fell in that category. He writes: in the trajectories published by the Hongkong Observatory we frequently find typhoons which appear to be formed in the China Sea to the northwest or north of Paragua, between the tenth and fourteenth parallels; but remembering the notices of typhoons given by our Observatory, it will easily be seen that many of said baguios [typhoons] did not originate in the China Sea, but proceeded from the Pacific and crossed the Archipelago by way of the Visaya Islands or of Mindanao, previous to following the trajectories traced by the Director of the Hongkong Observatory.46

An authoritative handbook on hurricanes and tropical revolving storms published by the British Meteorological Office in 1922 relies almost entirely on Fr. Algué’s book for the Far East, making only passing mention of Doberck.47 The closest we find to a review of The Law of Storms is a curious entry in Monthly Weather Review in 1899, under the heading ‘Notes by the Editor — obscure points in meteorology’. The editor at the time was the distinguished American meteorologist Cleveland Abbe. He quotes several passages from the 1898 (3rd) edition, some at considerable length, with the observation that they have caused some misapprehension and may need a word of comment in order to set the matter right in the minds of our readers, and indicates twelve points on which he would like to comment.48 He starts to comment on these extracted paragraphs, but having just covered the first item, a very general comment, we encounter ‘to be continued’. A search of later issues fails to locate any sign of such a continuation. The only publication Doberck had in that journal, the house organ of the American Meteorological Society, was a note on ‘Weather Forecasting in Hong Kong’ in the very same issue. Writing his Ph.D. thesis at Harvard in 1918 on typhoons in the Far East, Coching Chu (Zhu Kezhen) acknowledges his indebtedness to the Bulletin des Observations of the Zikawei Observatory, the Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, the annual reports of the Central Meteorological Observatory of Japan, and especially the monthly Bulletin of the Philippines Weather Bureau,


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but with no mention of publications from Hong Kong.49 He does, however, cite some of Doberck’s results in the body of his paper. Doberck initially classified typhoons into four classes, but later subdivided these categories into nineteen sub-classes. Chu was in essential agreement with this classification, which he thought superior to that of Fr. Chevalier at Zikawei, but he considered it unnecessarily complicated, and not free of ambiguity. He also argued in favour of Doberck’s assertion that the tendency of typhoons to head for Indo-China in September and October was a consequence of the northeast monsoon which becomes active at that time of year. Chu also discussed the locations of origin of typhoons, citing Algué’s criticism of Doberck’s ideas on the frequency of origins in the China Sea.50 Jeffries and Heywood, of the Hong Kong Royal Observatory, in 1938 published The Law of Storms in the China Sea.51 This is not a rewrite of Doberck, and he only gets a few mentions in it. Post-1949 Chinese writers on the history of meteorology in the country have little to say about the practice of the subject in the nineteenth century, and even less in a complimentary vein. However, a recent (2006) compendium on meteorology in China does go into some detail on the efforts made at the Customs Stations, and on the work done at the Zikawei Observatory.52 Hong Kong Observatory rates but two sentences and Doberck a single mention, as its director. When compared with his publications in astronomy Doberck’s efforts in meteorology would rapidly fall into oblivion. Perhaps it is worthwhile here briefly to contrast current thinking of the phenomenon with the state of knowledge in Doberck’s time. In fact, although the phenomenon is very complex, and several aspects of the theory have yet to be fully elucidated, the knowledge available at the end of the nineteenth century was largely adequate for practical meteorological purposes. The mechanics of the storm, whereby heated moist air under suitable circumstances will rise vertically, release heat on the vapour condensing, heat which energizes the Coriolis-influenced circulating winds, was basically understood. What was mainly lacking was information on the larger picture, which would enable the steering of the storm to be studied. Like vortices in a stream, which have the bulk velocity of the flow superimposed on their circulation, a typhoon is carried along by the motion of the atmosphere of its environment. It is important that that motion be coherent along the length of the vortex column, otherwise the differential flows will fragment the vortex and the storm will die. This socalled circumstance of the absence of ‘wind shear’ was a condition for typhoon formation and propagation discovered later.


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Day-to-Day Activities If there was some favourable comment on his Law of Storms, the same cannot be said of Doberck’s management of the Observatory, and we return there to review its day-to-day activities. The expansion of the Observatory and enhancement of its facilities following on the 1890 Commission’s report did not have the consequence of pleasing everyone; in fact there seems to have been widespread dissatisfaction with the Observatory’s performance, essentially in weather forecasting. From the summer of 1891, comments critical of its performance, and especially of its director, appeared in the China Mail. In the Legislative Council in July 1891 the unofficial member T. H. Whitehead observed that: ‘[lately] I fear the instruments were very defective or something was defective, because the warnings given by the Director were far from satisfactory’.53 The acting colonial secretary tried to deflect some of the criticism by saying that in a climate like Hong Kong’s the instruments and chemicals deteriorate more than might be the case elsewhere. By the summer of 1892 the China Mail was clamouring for another commission, noting that despite the staff increase, ‘little or nothing has resulted, beyond the comparatively irregular dropping of a timeball for several years, and a mass of figures which may or may not be of use to the cause of science generally’, and ‘there may be difficulties in the way of abolishing this non-productive Department of Meteorology; but it may be possible to get a Committee appointed …’.54 Four days later, the editor continued: If there were any who hoped for an improvement in this respect from the increased expenditure on the Observatory and the augmentation of its staff, the hope must have been destroyed by the melancholy exhibition of inefficiency given last week. If, as was then demonstrated, no information can be given by the meteorological department about a typhoon which is raging so near the colony that its centre is within ninety miles of us, the question whether the Observatory should continue to exist under its present organisation becomes a very pertinent one. … For any warning that was given with reference to the typhoon of last week we are indebted to the Manila Observatory.55

The director came in for some very direct abuse, the editor sarcastically upbraiding the government for promoting his Law of Storms (available at $1 from Kelly & Walsh): The Government may be excused for supposing that, as the signals are so seldom shown, there is a danger of people forgetting what they mean when they do appear. … We do not quite see why the public should be called upon to pay anything at all for information of the kind in question, especially as — judging from past experience — it is information which can very seldom be of any use.56


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Again, in an editorial: We have not the slightest doubt that if the vote of the shipping community were taken as regards the utility of the Observatory the unanimous verdict would be that, as far as any practical purpose is concerned, this expensive institution is utterly useless. The only reliable storm-warnings that are received in the colony are those that come from the Observatory in Manila. Telegraphic information regarding the existence of a typhoon and its direction are sent from Manila to the Hong Kong Government and to the Spanish Consul in Hong Kong, and copies of all such telegrams are courteously sent to the local press by the Consul. So long as Dr Doberck has these telegrams to go on, he is able to give the colony some information, generally superfluous, about the coming typhoon; but when he is left to his own resources he almost invariably gets hopelessly ‘fogged’.57

Part of the hostility arose from the fact that Doberck clearly ignored the public censure, and held all his critics in contempt. Another thorn was a perceived lack of ‘user-friendliness’ of the Observatory: its warnings were always strictly formal and concise, without any hint of uncertainty in their message, and enquiries from the public, e.g. a letter in the China Mail wondering why he did not inform the public of a lunar eclipse as ‘all the large private observatories at home enlighten the public on these matters’, were ignored.58 But he may have been stung by further criticism in September — hardly a week passed in the late summer and autumn of 1892 without some mention of the Observatory in the China Mail. On 9 September, repeated on the 27th, the editor noted that he had stopped receiving information from the Observatory, ‘without implying that the notice would have been of the slightest benefit to those afloat, or those ashore’. In an editorial in November in the context of economizing on the government over all, he suggested, echoing a viewpoint espoused in London ten years earlier, that the harbour master have charge of the Observatory.59 ‘The question of unnecessary expenditure in the Harbour Master’s department might very well be settled … by giving the Harbour Master charge of the Observatory, where, so far as any work of practical advantage to the colony is concerned his services would no doubt be more valuable than those of the present head of that institution’. The incessant criticism of the Observatory in the press was mainly confined to the China Mail, the Daily Press and the Telegraph rarely venturing into print on the subject. In an editorial, otherwise critical of Doberck, the Telegraph opined in September 1893 that: complaints have been made from time to time regarding … the Observatory … many of them were groundless or unjust [by] individuals swayed by prejudice and ignorance … who were particularly careful to conceal their identity when engaged in these underhand and cowardly attacks; but at the same time it must be admitted that there is room for considerable improvement in the methods adopted … at the Kowloon Observatory.60


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The unhappiness also found voice in official circles. In a November 1892 meeting of the Legislative Council’s Finance Committee all four of the unofficial members opposed a sum of money to be voted for the Observatory, the member representing the Chamber of Commerce stating: ‘the results of the Observatory this year are exceedingly unsatisfactory, in fact there are many in the Colony who regard the Observatory as absolutely useless’. It was a time of financial stringency in the colony, and programmes of retrenchment in different government departments were considered. When the matter was brought to the Legislative Council proper, the colonial secretary (G. T. M. O’Brien) came to the Observatory’s defence, saying that: the present Director of the Observatory enjoys a considerable reputation in the scientific world, that as an authority on the laws of storms he ranks high, and that probably he does as much for the colony in regard to storm warnings as it is possible to do in the present imperfect condition of our knowledge of the causes of meteorological phenomena. … [however] the Government agrees that there is a case for inquiry whether the existing expenditure on the Observatory is not excessive and whether the work performed at that institution does not include an undue proportion of research and observation which, although it may be, and probably is, of interest to the scientific world, has no special value for the Hong Kong taxpayers who provide its cost.61

The dissenting members were only finally persuaded not to vote against the proposed allocation in the Council by a promise of the governor to set up a small committee to look into ‘an accurate ascertainment of the amount of the existing expenditure which is devoted to purposes other than those which have a special value for the community of Hong Kong’. When the report was received the government would decide if retrenchment was possible, and how it might be enacted. The Council meeting was reported in the Daily Telegraph under the headline: ‘Doberck to be “retrenched”’.

The Aborted Enquiry Perhaps, in view of the outcome of the earlier commission, the governor was not too enthusiastic about this promise, but in early August 1893 his hand was forced to some extent. A body, the British Mercantile Marine Officers’ Association, invited Dr. Doberck to give them some lectures on typhoons, after which the Association’s president, Captain A. Tillett, suggested that a committee, to be associated with Dr. Doberck, should look at the system adopted at the Observatory for issuing meteorological reports and furnishing weather forecasts — topics quite different from those described by the colonial secretary at the


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Legislative Council meeting in the previous September as a subject for enquiry. A large number of representatives of shipping lines endorsed this suggestion and sent it to the Chamber of Commerce, who forwarded the letter to the governor. On 23 August the governor responded, setting up a committee consisting of Dr. Doberck (as chairman) and, in Dr. Doberck’s words, ‘three nautical gentlemen who are not acquainted with the subject [meteorology]’. This initiative was generally welcomed, the editorial in the Telegraph, in particular, laying the blame for its necessity at the feet of the director, saying that: the lack of a system by means of which information might be speedily and comprehensively placed in possession of the public … reflects more than any other, on the intelligence and capabilities of the Director, for it is upon his shoulders that the blame must fairly be placed. ... For it would have been a very simple matter for Professor Doberck to have introduced another system without having waited for public opinion to have ripened into the stage that it has now reached, … [and] that such a Commission should be rendered necessary does not say much for the administrative abilities of the Government Astronomer [sic].

The editor of the Mail was less sanguine about the matter, insisting that the governor had made a great mistake in including Doberck as a member of the commission, to sit in judgment on himself, and was sceptical of a favourable outcome. That the director himself did not welcome the setting up of the commission is evident in the second paragraph of his record of their first meeting on 11 September: ‘I do not know of any precedent for appointing anybody on such a committee except meteorologists’, and he did everything he could to thwart its success. Just the opposite opinion, of course, was held by the editor of the China Mail, who on 19 September wrote, in the course of the enquiry: Had these gentlemen not been fettered by the presence and direction of the defendant Doctor, something sound and sensible would doubtless have been forthcoming as a result of their deliberations. … the worthy Doctor will run counter to all the traditions of his stormy career in this Colony if his interference does not nullify all the good to be gained by the Commission, or if he does not break up the Committee prematurely.

The accounts, written by Doberck, of all three sessions of the committee read something like a Gilbert and Sullivan production. It collapsed in disarray after the third session on 26 September, as was forecast by the China Mail, when all the ‘nautical gentlemen’ resigned after seeing how Doberck represented their concerns to the government. In it he wrote: ‘I was obliged to enter into rudimentary explanations to enable them to understand the first principles of issuing weather forecasts’ [italics mine]. No report was issued, although the


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director’s accounts of all three sessions were published in the Gazette at his request, as well as responses from the resigned members. The only clarification to come out of the committee’s meetings was Doberck’s remark that isobaric weather charts were indispensable for typhoon prediction, and that to provide for their compilation, according to Figg, an expenditure of $2,000,000 annually would be necessary — a sum that was to be the butt of some humour in the days to come; the annual operation budget of the Observatory at the time was about $12,000.62 As we have noted, the collapse of the commission was no surprise to the editor of the China Mail, but it also had the effect of disabusing the editor of the Daily Telegraph of any sympathy he retained for the institution — not, one imagines, that this caused much concern to the director. But not only the director was the target of the editor’s abuse; he wrote: Since his advent in this Colony Governor Robinson has, through innumerable silly blunders, only too plainly shewn his inate [sic] weakness of character, but how even he could have been so weak as to have been hoodwinked by Professor Doberck as to assent to his appointment as chairman of an enquiry that might have resulted in serious reflections being cast on his professional abilities, is to the ordinary mortal a mystery as insolvable as that of the Sphynx itself. … Governor Robinson posed as a prophet when he blossomed out here and the result has been disappointing … but generally speaking a false prophet at Government House is not nearly so expensive a luxury as one in the Observatory. One is bad enough, but two are more than Hongkong can comfortably swallow.63

Not much notice seems to have been taken of the fact that it was the system of issuing meteorological reports and weather forecasts that was to be examined and not the methods adopted at the Observatory for obtaining meteorological results. Nothing more was heard on the matter, at least formally. The members of the British Mercantile Marine Officers’ Association were approached and asked to formulate some scheme for the dissemination of meteorological information, and its president, Captain A. Tillett, a member of the aborted commission, promised to do something, but nothing appears to have come of it.64 The requirements of the Observatory were spelled out in the China Mail: ‘what is chiefly wanted in Hong Kong is a daily forecast of the weather sufficient to act as a trustworthy guide — so far as human skill in weather forecasts can go — to the masters of vessels trading with this port’.65 The unsatisfactory situation was, to some extent, laid at the door of the ‘Home authorities’, the editor saying that:


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instead of sending to this Colony a meteorologist, Hong Kong was saddled with an astronomer … [a] mistaken policy of the Astronomer Royal [which] became more clearly manifest to the community. … this initial mistake was very greatly accentuated by the fact that the Astronomer so foisted on the Colony made the bad job worse instead of better by assuming an antagonistic and indiscreetly unfriendly attitude towards most of the residents here and in neighbouring out-stations who could have taught him the rudimentary ideas and rules of the work he was paid to perform.66

Much attempt at humour was bandied about in that paper at the director’s expense, from doggerel on 10 October — For I’m good at Mathematics, And Compound Inversion too; In Philosophical Theology There’s nought I cannot do; At Logic, too, I’m very fine, And can prove beyond a doubt That the differential calculus Is a certain cure for gout. — to the hope expressed on 14 October, that by the time the next typhoon season came around ‘the Doctor can be induced to take the post of Astronomer Royal, say in Cyprus or Samoa’. The editor suggested that the issuing of meteorological reports and furnishing weather forecasts should be done by an independent committee. An editorial on 20 October said that ‘the chance of any improvement in the supply of meteorological information from the Observatory is very slight; so long as Dr Doberck is Director no expectation of improvement can be hopefully entertained’. The same editorial indicated that there were proposals abroad for the setting up a meteorological society in the Colony, reviving the proposal made back in 1881 by Bowdler, and in the China Mail in November 1887 but nothing seems to have come of it. 67 There was such a society in Mauritius, and a Shanghai Meteorological Society was set up by Fr. Chevalier in May 1892, but it would be a hundred years before the current Hong Kong Meteorological Society was established, in 1988. In the matter of storm warnings, we must remember the very meagre relevant data available to the Observatory at the time. Readings from stations such as Vladivostok and Tokyo were of very marginal use, and readings from potentially informative stations like Hoihow and Pakhoi were usually received, if at all, very late. No information was available from the south of Taiwan until 1896 so that even a director with the best will in the world for interobservatory cooperation would not have had a simple task in predicting the


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arrival of a typhoon at Hong Kong. Further in Doberck’s defence we note a response to a related question in the Legislative Council, 16 April 1894, which sought assurances to ‘make the Observatory in its meteorological branch more useful than it has been in the past’, where the acting governor praised the director, saying that ‘he gave the Colony very timely notice of the approach of the last typhoon, and that he succeeded in forecasting its movements with commendable accuracy’. The Observatory was one government department that was not touched by retrenchment. Before leaving the matter of inadequate signalling for some time, it is interesting to see the first published instance of a complaint that was to become much more common in later times when the science of storm warnings became more mature. The question of overdoing the warnings was raised by a letter writer in the China Mail in September 1894. The writer claimed that signals had been left hoisted for an unnecessarily long time, so that the owners of junks and cargo boats could point to the typhoon signal and demand enormously larger prices.68 It was the kind of complaint that many later directors of the Observatory would have to wrestle with.

Tidal Studies The establishment by the Observatory of definitive tide tables was a very practical contribution to the advancement of Hong Kong as a port.69 Knowing the behaviour of the tides for such a port is of clear importance, and as early as 1877 the naval commander in chief, Admiral Ryder, urged the installation of an automatic tide gauge at Cape d’Aguilar under the charge of a light-house keeper for a determination of their rise and fall.70 Price made no mention of the subject in his first proposal, but in November 1879 in his response to the suggestions from the Royal Society for setting up an observatory for meteorology and terrestrial magnetism, Governor Pope Hennessy listed the tides as an additional topic suitable for study. As we have seen, Palmer in his proposal for an observatory included the study of the tides in his plans, suggesting that an autographic tide gauge of a design due to Sir William Thompson be set up in the harbour. The parameters for predicting tide levels at a location over the course of the year could be determined by monitoring the actual tides there for a period of at least a year.71 In 1882 Osbert Chadwick was brought out to Hong Kong to report on the sanitation conditions in the Colony.72 From his point of view good drainage facilities were a starting point for acceptable sanitation, and for a sea outfall this required that the behaviour of the sea level in the harbour be known. When he sought such information on the tides from the surveyor general, John M.


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Price, he was surprised to learn that no such knowledge was to hand.73 Using a float and graduated rod, monitored by a watchman every half hour in the naval dockyard for three months, Chadwick established the basic tidal rhythm. Together with a year’s monitoring for the year 1881, which he obtained from a private dock company and forwarded to the chief assistant, a Mr. Roberts, at the Nautical Almanac Office, the feasibility of adequate tide tables was apparent. With another year’s data for 1883 obtained under the supervision of the surveyor general, definitive tide tables for 1884, and successive years, were published at Colonial Office expense. Chadwick suggested that the new observatory could become a centre for the production of tide tables for the China Coast generally, extending from Singapore to Japan, and director-designate Doberck was encouraged to take an interest in the question.74 Chadwick said that some considerable organization would be required, and the acquisition of a tidepredicting machine similar to that used in London. Against this in the copy in the Colonial Office files, C. P. Lucas has penned: ‘I hope we will not spend any [more?] on scientific research at the present’. Indeed, nothing more seems to have been done until 1887 when a systematic three-year programme of monitoring the tides by the Observatory was started. Following Palmer’s suggestion, a tide gauge was mounted in a hut in the boat basin belonging to the police station at Kowloon Point — a central position in the harbour where the waves are not much felt. Doberck would have preferred to have hourly manual recording and in 1887 sought permission to defer geomagnetic monitoring for ‘some years’ to allow this to be done, but permission for this was denied. The readings from the charts on the hour were extracted and forwarded to the Nautical Almanac Office in London.75 There, a harmonic analysis was done on them by Mr. Roberts, and the relevant parameters established. His earlier analysis of the pre-Observatory data, according to Doberck, ‘represented the tides very closely indeed’. These parameters, based on the 1887–89 observations, would serve as the basis of tide table in the Colony for many years. Such a tide gauge had a scale, in feet, attached to it with an arbitrary zero somewhere below the likeliest tide level to be encountered. The average sea level on this scale over the three-year period could be determined; the mean sea level, MSL. On the assumption that it does not change with time this is a useful reference datum for fixing altitudes on land, and (in principle) depths in the sea, but it is a rather intangible quantity and has to be anchored to some fixed point or bench-mark on terra firma. Several such benchmarks were assigned but the one usually used for reference (until 1900) was known as the Rifleman’s Bolt. It was a copper stud implanted in the wall of the Hong Kong Naval Dockyard by the crew of H.M. surveying vessel Rifleman, in 1866. By Doberck’s reckoning it stood 5.435 metres above mean sea level.


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The Director Up Close What kind of a man was the director of the Hong Kong Observatory? Of course we can read something of his personality in the accounts of official events related so far. In more explicit terms, Doberck was sometimes described as zealous and very efficient — usually by people at a distance, Colonial Office officials in London or journal editors. More usually the adjectives used were incompetent, obstructionist, and according to a report of a meeting of the British Mercantile Marine Officers’ Association, when his name was invoked by the president, a member of the audience ‘to laughter and applause’ claimed ‘he is a *’. We know almost nothing of Doberck’s social life in Hong Kong. We have noted that he was not enthusiastic about attending official functions.76 Who did he associate with? We find Plummer in July of 1891, less than three months after his arrival, declining an invitation to have dinner with his boss, saying that he preferred to stay at home with his family.77 Admittedly the constituency of persons with whom he might have wished to associate, at least if we go by Governor Bowen’s assessment of his personality, was not very great, and the opportunities even further reduced by his residing in the hinterlands of Kowloon. Kowloon, as recently as the late 1950s, was described as: a different place, a different society. … There was no need to risk a journey to Kowloon, as all the comforts of life could be had in Hong Kong, and in any case it involved a tiresome crossing by ferry. The business and professional life of international Hong Kong took place on the island. This had been so since the nineteenth century.78

Was he a member of the Hong Kong Club? Occasions of intellectual stimulation, however, were not entirely lacking. There was the Hong Kong Engineers’ Institute, with offices in Wyndham Street in Central. Founded in 1882 mainly for the interests of marine engineers, it did house a scientific library with all the standard journals of engineering, and, according to the China Mail correspondent, ‘a neat little bar has been placed in the reading room, where temperance refreshments of every kind may be obtained’.79 By 1887 the College of Medicine for Chinese was established, the first approximation to a tertiary education establishment in the territory. Did he know some of the people there? The polymath Sydney B. Skertchly, in 1894–95 professor of botany and chemistry at the College, wrote a detailed letter in 1894 in the China Mail on a solar corona, or parhelion, he had observed the previous day, and on its interpretation.80 Did they interact? And, of course, there was the other government Ph.D. with whom he had in common, at least, their outsider status; Dr. Eitel, who left Hong Kong in April 1897. One suspects that Dr. Doberck kept his distance, but we do not know. Failure to detect any evidence


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of a social life is probably a reflection of his generally misanthropic personality. He was a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society for ten years, but in midcareer as a meteorologist resigned in December 1893. Similarly, his fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society would last only for a few years from 1908. Even his interactions with the various officials in the Colony get little notice. Memoirs and diary entries reveal little of how he was seen by his peers and superiors. Governors Bowen and Des Voeux make no mention of him in their reminiscences, and Nathan only notes in his diary that he asked to interview him in 1905, and again after the great storm in 1906.81 Following a suggestion from Fr. Froc at Zikawei, William Ferdinand Tyler, coast inspector (effectively head of the Marine Department) of the Imperial Chinese Customs took it on himself to arrange to have a standard time adopted on the China Coast — Manila had adopted such in September 1899. In 1902 he visited Hong Kong, where he met Doberck, whom he characterized as ‘an old, old man’ — he himself was thirty-eight, and Doberck just fifty at the time.82 Because such a change would affect the sequence, and thus the value of his twenty years’ collection of observations of temperature and humidity, he reports the director as saying he could not possibly agree to the proposal for realigning the time; the fact that the original idea was Froc’s not weighed in the account. Standard time was eventually introduced in Hong Kong on 30 October 1904, presumably without his blessing because until the end of 1912 measurements at the Observatory continued to be made on the hour of local time.83 Over and above his demanding requirements of his junior staff, Doberck also harboured the racially superior attitude to his local employees that was common among his likes at the time. Even allowing for the educational level of those prepared to accept the meagre salary on offer, it is hard to defend his assertion in his annual report for 1890 that ‘the dropping of the time-ball is the duty of the First Assistant. The natives are useless for such work’. The Jesuits at their observatory were marginally more progressive, giving little credit to their ‘native’ assistants, although as early as 1871 they had a Chinese as director of their Zikawei College, and from 1876 a Chinese chief librarian. Writing of his five Chinese assistants in 1904, Froc said that they ‘would never be more than aides of a lower degree; it is useless to think of giving them one of the services to direct’.84 Communication in Chinese was also accorded a low priority. Although notices in Hong Kong concerning storm signals prior to the setting up of the Observatory had sometimes been duplicated in Chinese, no messages from the new institution were issued in the language, with one exception. This was a very brief description of the difference between red and black signals that accompanied a full description of the signals in the Gazette in January 1898.85 Zikawei did a little better, publishing Chinese versions of its code of signals,


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and when it started to publish synoptic charts, annotating them bilingually in English and Chinese. In 1906 Fr. Joseph de Moidrey published a twenty-six-page pamphlet in Chinese introducing the Zikawei Observatory. Doberck did, apparently, gain some foreign recognition. In one of his publications, in 1890, he styles himself as ‘Officer de l’Ordre de Dragon d’Annam’, but it is not clear how he came to be so honoured — certainly not on any recommendations arising from the French Jesuits at Zikawei, and there is no evidence that he visited Indo-China.86 It presumably was in recognition of the value of his storm warning signals received there.

Home Leave Curtailed Planning to go on his first long leave in 1893 (he had applied for such just before Plummer’s arrival in 1891, but withdrew his application when his incompatibility with the new appointee became apparent), in November 1892 the director drew up, in great detail, a roster of duties for the staff in his absence.87 Notable among the specifications was that Miss Doberck would be responsible for ‘all correspondence of any nature whatsoever’; she had only been in position for six months. Although signed by the four senior and four junior members of the staff, Doberck did not go on leave and this document seems not to have left the Observatory. In April of 1894 a similar ‘arrangement’ was drawn up,88 Plummer was to have exclusive charge of the astronomical and magnetic instruments, and was to take charge of correspondence, but he was to be denied access to the rooms of the meteorological staff! Figg, assisted by Anna, was to have exclusive control of the meteorological work, and no observations or researches were to be published while Doberck was away. The director would be on half salary, and it was proposed that the staff members (with one exception, the first clerk D. Morrison) would share the other half. Plummer, Figg and Anna signed the draft proposal, and it was sent for endorsement by the governor. The reply was: the Officer Administering the Government declines to sign the document forwarded … or any document of a like nature. In the event of your being granted leave of absence at any future time the officer who may be appointed to act as your locum tenens will be responsible for the proper conduct of the department during your absence.89

He also petitioned the governor to comply with his wish that Mr. Figg, who was junior to Plummer, act in his place during his absence. When requested to give his reasons for trying to disrupt the canonical order of officialdom, he replied with a litany of complaints against his chief assistant.90 In a letter of 6 May 1894 to the colonial secretary he wrote:


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Mr Plummer was selected, according to my own suggestion, for his fitness as an assistant astronomer. I expected that an officer so selected would easily learn meteorological and magnetic work but I was disappointed in Mr Plummer, and shortly after his arrival I gave over teaching him anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for him to know in doing his work. He has no knowledge of weather forecasting and storm warnings [something which would earlier have been obvious from his c.v.]. … Mr Plummer makes magnetic observations but owing to his [illegible] lack of knowledge of magnetism they are so badly made that the system of observing has had to be altered. … he has no knowledge of electricity or the testing of the electric apparatus connected with the time-ball. Mr Plummer has no knowledge of official routine … nor of supervision of the scientific staff, nor of official correspondence. Mr Plummer is not on good terms with the staff of this Observatory, who would prefer an outsider to act for me, although they thereby lose a temporary addition to their salaries, but there is nothing to show that Mr Plummer is connected with the attacks persistently made on the Observatory in the public press.

This unnecessary addition in the final sentence may have been made to imply the contrary, and was very likely seen in this light. However, since the hostile commentary in the China Mail, which had by then been suspended for six months, shows no obvious suggestion of ‘leaked’ information, it may just reflect Dr. Doberck’s frankness in official communications. When, despite these protestations, his request to bypass Plummer failed, Doberck petitioned the secretary of state for the colonies using a somewhat more diplomatic approach. In his annual report for 1891 (§17) he had compared the accuracy of the time-ball under Figg’s management with that when an unnamed assistant was in charge, much to the discredit of the unnamed assistant (who, on several occasions, he says, did not attend). That unnamed assistant he now implies, as part of his case for wanting Figg as acting director, was Plummer. The Colonial Office advised the governor to use his own discretion, with a minute along the way: ‘to place his subordinate temporarily above [Plummer] seems to me preposterous’.91 The governor, anyway of the view that since Plummer had been recommended by the astronomer royal he could not be lightly overlooked, accordingly appointed him acting director, with a share of the saved salary, but denied any recompense to the other staff members for their increased responsibility. Doberck, in response, refused the acting director access to the Observatory’s correspondence file — not surprising if it contained the letter to the governor of 6 May, referred to above, or his letter to the secretary of state for the colonies where he also wrote:


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Early China Coast Meteorology the Governor thinks that Mr Plummer ... is the proper person to act for me, although I declare him to be unfitted for such duty.

He went on leave at the end of May 1894 just at a time when a serious outbreak of plague occurred, intending to be away for about a year (at the time the granting of leave was not automatic, and the allowance for passage none too generous, amounting to only one third of the return cost for each six years of leave-earning service — in addition the candidate only received half-pay while on leave). The atmosphere in the Observatory he left behind can be judged from a note Plummer addressed Figg a week after taking over: 6th June, 1894. Mr. Figg. As I am the officer responsible to the Government for the proper working of the Observatory, I wish to have a bi-weekly report from you that the meteorological work is going on satisfactorily. So long as I have this, I shall not interfere with that Department, but shall endeavour to carry out Dr. Doberck’s regulation rigorously. On the other hand if the work of the Observatory suffers, I shall not hesitate to treat the regulations as waste paper and make what regulations I think necessary. (Sgd) John J. Plummer. 92

In March of that year, 1894, the governor had appointed a retrenchment commission, charged with introducing economies into government spending and it returned its report while Doberck was away. In spite of recommendations from the editor of the China Mail to the contrary,93 its recommendations affecting the Observatory were rather mild.94 It appears that the commissioners interviewed the director before he went on leave, and accepted his ‘formal declaration that all the time of the staff is taken up with observations and researches which are of importance to the Colony, of local interest and of value to shipping’, and decided they would not recommend any reduction in the staff or pay thereof, or in the cost of the Observatory. They also recommended that the work of the Observatory be confined to meteorological science, and that no work be undertaken which was not of local interest or for the benefit of shipping. As with all the other committees he faced, this was another instance of the force of Dr. Doberck’s personality, because they made these recommendations in the face of many reservations they had about the economy of the Observatory. They wished to know why a staff of four assistants and three clerks was necessary when the observatory at Mauritius was, by the account of the astronomer royal, doing important work although its director had only one assistant. They also


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seem to have gone beyond their remit and entered into the controversy about storm warnings, saying they had ‘no reason to believe that any unnecessary delay occurs in the issue of storm warnings, but we think that the information given is not of a practical nature or brought to the notice of the public at large in such a manner as to arrest their attention and warn them of the approach of a typhoon’, and made some small suggestions for improvement. Since they were not even ‘nautical gentlemen’ — they constituted a senior judge, the manager of the Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank and two legislative councillors — we can be sure that the director lost little sleep on this account.

Yet Another Enquiry The newspaper writers at this time had something much greater to write about: the raging plague, so the Observatory, in the director’s absence, got some respite from their barbs. The China Mail although complaining on 27 August about the inadequate notice of storms, on 19 September commented favourably on the timely warning given by the acting director Plummer of a storm the previous night. A little premature, because a major storm hit on the night of 24 September for which the Observatory gave no early warning; ample warning was given for another on 30 September and a big one on 5 October. Plummer began sending summary information on typhoons to the newspapers after they had passed, something Doberck would never deign to do, and sent a detailed account of the typhoon of 25 September (without any mention that, among other damage, it blew away the roof of the room housing the equatorial telescope).95 He gave a very reasoned account of the build up of the storm, gave a qualified apology for not getting warnings out earlier — he reckoned he gave shipping four or five hours, but it was in the middle of the night — and complained about the failure of Gap Rock lighthouse to provide information after 4 p.m. (at which time it closed down until 7 a.m.). However, he made his account very personal, implying that he was the master of the situation when, in fact, Figg, whom he did not mention, was almost surely the person in command of the meteorological data. Doberck may have spent the early part of his leave in Copenhagen; away from the Observatory he need have no qualms about working on astronomical problems and he devoted time to a redetermination of the orbit of the first comet of 1824 observed by Sir T. M. Brisbane in Queensland, work he published the following year.96 It was 1 October before he reached London, where he found a reprimand, dated 19 July, in the mail from the Colonial Office. It seems that the Treasury at Hong Kong asked the acting director for a document which he was unable to supply, and the colonial secretary, detecting some ignorance on the part of the acting director of earlier correspondence, wondered why.


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Plummer had to reveal the non-availability of the correspondence file, though not without some understanding of why it had been denied to him.97 He claimed that Doberck had informed him that the files were private and confidential, writing: ‘although I was aware that what was purely departmental could not be considered private to anyone acting for him yet I thought and still think that it is likely that some purely private matter has found its way into the official letter book and I was therefore unable to press for possession of it’. The governor passed the complaint to London, saying that he had ‘reason to believe that Dr Doberck on his departure on leave did not do all in his power to make things smooth for his locum tenens’.98 The Colonial Office saw it as a serious matter and wanted an explanation. It caused much comment in the circulating documents, including: ‘this gentleman seems a typical example of the “Scientific Civil Servant” who often give so much trouble’, and: ‘Dr Doberck is an exceedingly odd man and combines all the disadvantages under which … the scientific expert occasionally suffers. We must tolerate him for it is not easy to fill the place’.99 In his reply, Doberck pointed out that a complete file of his correspondence was available in the Colonial Secretary’s Office [!], that clerks could not be spared for making copies at the Observatory, but in future he would be more careful in archiving his correspondence. He also said that he was not aware that his deputy could be supposed to have access to all the correspondence, especially to such as regards himself [his deputy] and the other members of the staff, ‘with whom Mr J. I. Plummer is not in cordial relations …’. He described how he had spent eleven years building up the Observatory, and how he had ‘left nothing undone now that could possibly conduce to its smooth working during my absence’. Mr. Figg, he said, was acquainted with practically his whole correspondence, and Mr. Plummer had promised him never to write an official letter without first consulting Mr. Figg. So much for the admonition from the governor on the required independence of his stand-in — which the Colonial Office will not have seen. He said he had received letters from his assistants informing him the Observatory was working as smoothly as ever, and that Mr. Plummer had tried in vain to raise unnecessary difficulties.100 These explanations apparently satisfied the Colonial Office, though less so the Hong Kong government. He sought permission to curtail his leave and to return to Hong Kong ‘to inspect the work done by my assistants during the past four months’. It was granted, with a minute by Mr. Lucas doubting his welcome on return. Meanwhile he took the opportunity to continue his analysis of cometary motions in the library of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. At the same time ‘he aired his grievances in regard to Mr and Mrs Plummer’ to Christie, the astronomer royal, this over three years after Plummer’s appointment.101 Before returning to Hong Kong he got married, on the 7 November 1894, at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, London, to one Harriet Elizabeth Harris.102


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He arrived back in Hong Kong on 27 December and went straight to the Observatory, but the next day he was docked to half pay as though he were still on leave and asked to explain his behaviour, especially: What right had you to extract promises from an officer appointed by His Excellency to act during your absence? Were you not informed … that His Excellency had disapproved of the arrangement proposed by you, and that the officer appointed to act would be responsible for the proper conduct of the department?103

In reply he turned the tables on his interlocutors, by pointing out, with some exaggeration, the disastrous condition in which he found his beloved observatory on his return, all, according to him, due to the incompetence of the acting director who was appointed against his advice. He was still penalized to half pay, but the governor convened a two-man committee to investigate his complaints against Plummer. The list of charges included, (i) that Plummer was solely responsible for the unsatisfactory state in which he found the Observatory on his return, viz. his replacement of the rotatory roof over the equatorial telescope, which was blown away in a typhoon, by an unsuitable tile roof, the state of the wires in the transit telescope made fine observations impossible, the electric batteries had never been overhauled, the reversing galvanometer of the time-ball had become corroded, the anemometer at the Peak, also destroyed by the typhoon of Sept 25 remained broken, and the weight cord of the transit clock went unrepaired; (ii) that he improperly discontinued observations without obtaining His Excellency’s permission, in particular transit observations of the sun, moon and planets for chronometer calibration; (iii) that he tried to raise unnecessary difficulties, e.g. by harassing Anna Doberck over a book that was missing from the library, that he presented typhoon reports as his own results rather than the result of Figg’s labours, that he insulted Mr. Figg in the letter noted earlier, and finally (vi) that he was not in cordial relations with the staff. Doberck also brought his case to the astronomer royal, though without obvious result. He wrote that Plummer had made not a single observation of transits after he left, failed to secure the dome on the Lee Equatorial, and when it blew away represented that the instrument was not required [which was true], brought a malicious and untrue charge against his sister.104 He had also taken Figg’s work on typhoons and presented them as his own when, in fact, he did not go near the Observatory but stayed at home while Figg was issuing the warnings and observing the weather. Even worse, the governor was


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so impressed by Plummer’s allegations that His Excellency had refused to grant him full pay and placed him on half pay until further notice. The commissioners (the captain superintendent of police and the treasurer) spent a day at the Observatory, and wrote a report, which was not published, after interviewing Doberck, Plummer and Figg (‘who appeared reluctant to say anything which might cause friction’).105 They looked into the several accusations he had made against the acting director. The most serious they saw as the failure to replace the anemometer on the Peak, so essential for the future typhoon season, remarking that ‘as it is, the Colony will be fortunate if it obtains a new instrument in time for the next typhoon season, [and] it appears (apart from any other considerations) somewhat fortunate that Dr Doberck should have curtailed his leave’. In other matters Plummer was not short of a defence; for the failure to make observations he could blame the damaged roof in the transit building, and the fact that the transit clock was out of order. As another example, he responded to the accusation that the ‘[telescope] wires had been allowed to get into such a state as to render fine observations impossible’, with the reasonable remark that ‘during the cool season it is impossible to find [spider’s threads]. … He has been looking for good spider’s threads for some months to replace them with’. The committee members gave as their opinion that the principle cause of friction which led to the enquiry was ‘the discontinuance of the astronomical observations which Dr Doberck considers so important and of such value to the shipping’. The ‘astronomical observations’, of course, in so far as (and only in so far as) they related to time-keeping were important to shipping, but this was not an aspect that the maritime community ever complained about. What they were always dissatisfied with was the forecasting and signal information, especially in regard to typhoons. Plummer invoked the report of the Retrenchment Commission, which, he informed them, said that ‘all work not of local interest or of use to the shipping should be discontinued’, and that ‘he did not consider that these observations were of direct use to the Colony and therefore discontinued them’. One can hardly contradict him on this, but the commissioners thought otherwise, writing that ‘unless orders were issued to Mr Plummer to cease all such work as was not in his opinion of local interest … we fail to see what sufficient reason existed for his discontinuing work which has been regarded as important by Dr Doberck’. This seems a harsh decision on an (acting) head of department, but Dr. Doberck, as we know, was a forceful, and professionally very competent, individual and seems to have been easily able to convince the superintendent of police and the treasurer of his case. The question of the absent correspondence file was only lightly touched on, the commissioners saying that Plummer may simply have intended to consult it for an explanation of certain facts and have been as surprised as Doberck to


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find its absence charged against the director as a serious offence. In respect of a lack of cordial relations with his staff, Mr. Plummer said that he did not know Miss Doberck, and therefore had no relations cordial or otherwise with her! In defence of Plummer we must note that when the governor refused to compensate the other members of staff during the director’s absence, he wrote requesting that Figg be made acting chief assistant, and rewarded appropriately, saying: ‘Mr Figg is a most valuable officer and notwithstanding eleven years service has never received any increase of emolument whatever’.106 In this he was successful. The commissioners largely agreed with the director’s accusations against Plummer, reporting, apparently with approval, that ‘Dr Doberck considers that Mr Plummer is an excellent astronomical observer, but no more; that he was unfit to be acting Director and that his regime was not a success, that he has not looked after the instruments nor continued observations as he ought to have done, and that he has not behaved well to Dr. Doberck himself, to Mr. Figg or to Miss Doberck, but, he adds, that he has no desire to bring forward charges against Mr. Plummer’. Later in the day, after their visit, Doberck wrote to them: ‘the statements you looked into to-day concern Mr. Plummer solely in his capacity as my locum-tenens and do not prevent him being useful as an assistant astronomer’ — as he always intended! — ‘I made them only because I was ordered to do so by the Government’.107 It is hard not to have some sympathy for Plummer. They also forwarded the director’s request that his salary be restored, being ‘unaware of the reason which has led to his being thus punished’, and he was refunded the undrawn half pay on 8 February. Clearly, the commissioners saw his opinion of Plummer as being unsuited to lead the Observatory as vindicated, and on all future occasions when he was absent Figg was appointed to act for him. Not that Plummer did not protest. In 1897 when Doberck went on leave for five months and Figg acted in his place, Plummer wrote: ‘but as I have never heard anything as to the results of that enquiry I can only assume that the charges then so suddenly sprung upon me were considered frivolous, or were rebutted’, and appealed to the governor, who denied his request for a private interview.108 As a last resort he appealed to the secretary of state for the colonies (assisted by a petition from one F. W. Wilson M.P.): ‘the Governor appointed Mr F G Figg, who is my junior, to be acting Director in his absence, the arrangements having been managed so secretly that I was afforded no opportunity of protesting against them or of asserting my claim’.109 Forwarded with a covering note by the governor, who recalled the results of the enquiry of 1894 — the unpublished report of which the Colonial Office had not seen — the response from London was that there was no reason to interfere as such matters were entirely at the discretion of the governor. Later, when a copy of the three-year-old report was forwarded to them, we find


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minutes: ‘[the] report on the whole is unfavourable to Mr Plummer and I think his punishment is just about what he deserves’, and, more condescendingly, ‘Mr. Plummer is admittedly a good man in certain respects, but is wanting in some of the qualifications necessary for the administration of a Govt. dept. These sort of difficulties are apt to occur in any scientific dept., where the employees are necessarily selected mainly for their scientific qualifications, and are not invariably endowed with a great amount of tact or savoire faire’.110 Thereafter things seem to have settled down to a mutual tolerance: a Colonial Office official, commenting on the annual publication Observations and Researches in 1896 says, ‘I am glad to see that Dr Doberck distributes praise fairly impartially between Mr Figg and Mr Plummer’.111 It may be that marriage mellowed the director somewhat, for, by and large, the Observatory seemed to have settled into a behaviour more characteristic of a government department. Expenses were around $13,000 per year, in line with the 1890 Commission’s recommendations, and Doberck started to take leave when the opportunity allowed. He satisfied himself that he had established all that was necessary in typhoon meteorology for the purposes of storm prediction. It was not his interest beyond that; notwithstanding the requirements he specified for Anna’s appointment he never made any mention of the rival theories of the origin of such storms. Also he could have confidence in Figg in regard to most, if not all, matters involved in running the Observatory. His first, aborted, leave of absence, as we have seen resulted in significant astronomy research, and in his future journeys abroad the opportunity was always taken to get some observations in and/or some writing done. But, notwithstanding the recommendation of the retrenchment commission that no work be undertaken which is not of local interest or for the benefit of shipping, and many similar injunctions earlier, he did not confine his astronomical work to these travels.

Figg, The Eminent Typhoonist At this point it is appropriate to enquire into Mr. Figg’s career. Figg would seem to have been poorly treated. As we have seen, Doberck was none too accommodating of his assistant’s requests for long leave, the issue only being forced in the end by Figg’s illness. Figg’s first request for a salary increase in August 1893, ten years after his arrival in Hong Kong, was turned down.112 Plummer, while acting director, had some sympathy for his situation, and Doberck in April 1897 successfully applied for an annual allowance of $1000 for him, saying that Figg ‘has just now been entrusted by His Excellency with an important meteorological mission to Sir Ernest Satow and the Japanese authorities’.113 Figg applied again for a raise, after


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the Plummer fiasco, at which time one of the Colonial Office officials noted: ‘if Mr Figg is so much better than Mr Plummer it is certainly anomalous that the former is only drawing $1560 a year (the pay received by him since 1883) [$1200 plus $360 in lieu of quarters] while Mr Plummer draws $2160’.114 But those officials had not seen the report of the enquiry and deferred any decision until a copy was sent to them. The governor, William Robinson, himself wrote to the Colonial Office in December 1897 asking that Figg’s salary be increased from $1560 to $1920, saying: ‘his claims to special consideration have … been urged upon me by prominent members of the community’, and that he was ‘a reliable authority on typhoons and the storm warnings issued from the Observatory, which are of great benefit to the shipping and the Colony generally, are based to a great extent on the information furnished by him’.115 The officials at the Colonial Office were not impressed; in February 1898 we have minutes: ‘not … justified in sanctioning an increase in Mr Figg’s salary at the present but … will be glad to reconsider the question in a year’s time should the finances of the Colony admit of it’ and ‘I foresee more trouble in the future if we raise the salary of this eminent typhoonist and nothing for Mr Plummer’.116 He was finally rewarded in 1899 with an increase to $1920, his first salary increase in sixteen years. Figg never sought to project himself above his station. Whether it was from a genuine admiration of his boss’s uncompromising behaviour and rigorous scientific approach, or from a gratitude to Doberck for rescuing him from a dead-end position at Kew, we do not know. He made no efforts to elicit public sympathy and went out of his way not to take sides against the director in the many controversies affecting the Observatory. He visited Tokyo in August 1897 to arrange for the transmission of telegrams — presumably the ‘important meteorological mission’ that his boss spoke of. Although clearly a very knowledgeable observer of typhoons, he made no attempt to publicize this fact, and the only publication to his name over a thirty-year period is a table of telegraphic codes he published in 1898.117 This latter was a response to the reluctance of the telegraph company to transmit so much data in raw form, and a long exchange of letters with Froc at Zikawei, whose suggested input to the project was rejected.

Undercover Astronomy Although meteorology is our primary concern, the role of the Hong Kong Observatory in the subject cannot be divorced from the director’s eternal devotion to astronomy. It is clear that Doberck’s interest in astronomy


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never waned, but it seems that he scorned any possible genuine interest in his subject outside the confines of astronomical observatories. As we have seen, when in 1894 a spectacular parhelion (solar halo) appeared, it was up to Skertchly to describe it for the public. A year later, a columnist complains of the lack of information on ‘an interesting astronomical event’ which had occurred in the previous weeks, and commented on how the astronomers royal of India, Australia and the Cape kept their public fully informed on such matters.118 An editorial in the Hong Kong Daily Press in June 1899 thought that the governor should recognize that those who were interested in astronomy were entitled to some assistance from the Observatory, and that he might suggest to his head of department that he would approve of his communicating to the local papers intimations of forthcoming astronomical events of special interest, as was done at the Shanghai and Manila observatories. This interest was motivated by a letter to the paper from one R. F. Cobbold, urging the governor to require the Observatory to provide the populace with advance information on astronomical phenomena. Rev. Cobbold complained of the failure of the Observatory to give any advance notice of a lunar eclipse which had just occurred, and hoped that they would do better in informing the public on dramatic meteor showers which he expected later in the year. The complaint was taken up by the China Mail the same day, saying: ‘when we have a first class observatory of our own manned by first class experts at a considerable cost to the Colony, we should not be dependent upon amateur observers however competent, for information of “current events” in the heavens around us’. There is no evidence that Doberk passed any notice. In a sense, of course, he could feel that he was not obliged to, as all his instructions were to pursue studies only of direct value to the community, and astronomy per se was not counted among such subjects. Disdain for popular interest in his treasured hobby is a more likely explanation for the negligence. If the director paid lip service to the government’s instructions to shun pure astronomical research, he certainly did not abandon it. Of more than eighty reports that Doberck published during his years at the Hong Kong Observatory, less than 15% relate to subjects other than astronomy. But, after his abortive attempts to have his work on double stars published in 1886, he makes no further mention of purely astronomical work in his annual reports and, in fact, seems to have set aside this work for some years. Then in three longish papers that were published in 1890–91, he reduced some of the observations he made earlier at Markree. Starting in the mid-1890s he again appears in print in the astronomical literature, at least sixty-one times between 1895 and his departure in 1907. This


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reflects in part surreptitious work done at the Observatory and in part work carried out while on long leave. Most of his time was taken up, as at Markree, with double star systems, though later in his stay he did observations on southern hemisphere stars more generally. In the orbit calculations, in particular, he frequently acknowledges the assistance of Plummer. His annual report to the government for 1895 is a long document with much redundant tabulation, but not a mention of astronomy.119 It contrasts sharply with his annual report to the Royal Astronomical Society for the same year, one paragraph long, in which he reports observing double stars with the Lee Equatorial, and his intention to ‘bring the orbits of double stars calculated at Markree up to date, and correct the elements by the method of least squares’.120 He invited double-star observers to forward their observations to him. In 1897 he spent time at the McMillin Observatory at Ohio State University in Columbus. His wife, Harriet Elizabeth Harris, was possibly American, which could explain Doberck’s decision to work at this new observatory. We have a photograph of him taken about this time in a salon in Dayton (see Fig. 13). He also took the opportunity to attend a meeting from 7 to 13 August of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Detroit, where he is numbered among the foreign guests. Then in 1900, and again in 1903, Doberck spent time observing at the Copenhagen Observatory.

Fig. 13. A studio portrait of Dr. Doberck in Dayton, Ohio, around 1897. Courtesy of the Librarian, Lick Observatory.


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On the home front, he ventured in 1897 to present some results, which, he rightly anticipated, would pass the censor.121 His Observations and Researches for that year contains a long article: ‘On the latitude of Hong Kong’. From the title this might be construed as work of immediate practical interest to the Colony, whereas it was largely an exercise in accurate astronomical analysis — and, indeed, he does not even arrive at a canonical value for the latitude of the Observatory.122 The work was based on a fifteen- month-long programme of observing pairs of stars (a total of 1866 pairs), a special catalogue of whose contemporary coordinates he had to construct. This tabulation, not to mention the actual observing which he shared about equally with Plummer, was a very time-consuming exercise. Plummer, however, gets no mention other than the initials JIP to indicate the observer on a given night. The latitude every month is quoted, with a probable error of typically 0.02 ,123 and the values compared when corrected according to Chandler (which he did not explain).124 With his very small quoted error it is not surprising that there are discrepancies, but he does not discuss the question further. With a little bit more circumspection, Doberck might have pursued his ambitions in astronomy with little interference from authority. Routine meteorological operations were safely in Figg’s hands, ably assisted by Anna and the technical staff, and it seems unnecessary for him, in the autumn of 1898, to have vented his animosity towards the Manila Observatory with the vigour he did, as we see in the next chapter.


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7 A Jesuit Conspiracy The Government was not asked to persecute and oppress the Jesuit scientists at Manila by the Hong Kong Government official, only the unauthorised request of their jealous meteorologist … Eliza Skidmore, 18991

On an Even Keel After fifteen years of effort Doberck and Figg, and their more recently arrived colleagues, had established a modus operandi at the Observatory. Figg, with assistance from Anna, was responsible for weather prognostication while Doberck, ensnaring Plummer in his projects where necessary, increasingly drifted back to the study of astronomy. Unlike in more northerly latitudes, frequent changes in the weather in a place like Hong Kong are not so likely to occur, and the necessity for routine forecasting is not so great. Probably for this reason, and also because the whole exercise of forecasting had been contentious among professional meteorologists, it was not until January 1895 that the Observatory began to publish formal forecasts. Though the press made no comment, the community probably welcomed the decision. The need for such forecasts had been sometimes urged earlier, notably at the time of the big freeze of January 1893. The cold snap set in on Sunday the 15th, and until the 19th the minimum temperature recorded at the Observatory was 3°C or lower, touching 0°C on the 18th, the lowest value ever recorded there. No data were being recorded at the Peak station at the time: in his report for 1892 the director said that the observations there were found not to be made in a sufficiently honest or careful manner and that His Excellency ordered them to be discontinued, but several individuals on the Peak reported temperatures as

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low as -3°C. Ice formations were common; some survived the journey down to Central, and one taipan suffered serious injury when he slipped outside his house at Mt. Kellett. The likelihood of deaths among the local population was acknowledged, but no quantitative reports are to be found in the Englishlanguage press. Snow was reported on the hills of Lantau,2 and the Hong Kong Telegraph’s correspondent reported a snowstorm at Macao, while one account had Pokfulam reservoir completely frozen over to a thickness of three quarters of an inch — rather unlikely. In the weather report from the Observatory it was only noted: ‘weather unusually cold’. The editor of the China Mail eagerly jumped at such a bait to give vent to his animosity towards the director. In an editorial on the 17th he wrote: See what it is to have a Government Observatory and a staff of competent meteorologists. People might have arrived, in a blundering, unscientific way, at the conclusion that there was something uncommon about the weather, but would they, without the aid of the Observatory, have discovered that it was ‘unusually cold’? … While fully admitting the completeness and the scientific exactness of Dr Doberck’s explanation we hardly think that he has quite risen to the occasion. … He is a man of science, of course, and we must not expect him to undertake gratuitous flights of the imagination, but a few words about a “cold wave” or a “cold snap” in a strictly scientific sense and without prejudice would have been welcome.3

Admittedly, many of the early forecasts thereafter seemed of a perfunctory nature, but the first one, issued on 20 January 1895, was substantial, reading: ‘Barometer falling; Fresh to moderate N winds; cloudy, some drizzling rain’. Of course it was never plain sailing; there would always be minor ruffles in the calm. In October 1896 the China Mail would observe that ‘the Director of the Observatory has caused much loss to Hong Kong by his boorish treatment of the Manila Fathers’,4 while in November Fr. Dechevrens complained how a report by Doberck characterizing the warnings for a typhoon at Shanghai in July that year in the Government Gazette was injurious to his colleague Fr. Froc at Zikawei.5 The report, which Doberck attributed to Figg, gave an account of a storm which struck the coast on 23 July, and of which the Observatory gave advance warning to Shanghai. Without naming any names, Figg asserted that ‘it appears that no other warning was given indicating a gale in that port’.6 Writing to the colonial secretary, the Zikawei director hoped for a rectification in the next issue of the Gazette — in vain. If the Jesuits at Shanghai were to be treated with studied indifference, this was not to be the lot of their confreres in Manila. Wars in the last decade of the century between China and Japan, and Spain and America, caused some problems for meteorologists in East Asia generally. Following on the first Sino-Japanese War, and the Treaty of Shimonoseki in


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April 1895, the supply of information from Taiwan dried up — the important South Cape station was destroyed. Even when operations were restored in 1897 messages had to go via Tokyo and suffered some delay, as the Tamsui-Fuzhou telegraph cable was cut. Doberck hoped to get data from new telegraph stations at Capiz and Tuburan (in the Visayas), as he was getting from the station at Bolinao, but the telegraph company was not accommodating, suggesting that he might ‘ask the priests to do the work’. This he declared ‘impossible’, adding ‘returns from Manila are too rough, and received too late, and are generally useless. Returns from priests elsewhere in the Philippines would certainly be no better’.7 When, in March 1898, a new cable was laid connecting directly with Manila bypassing Bolinao from where Doberck always prized the data, a similar suggestion from the telegraph company elicited the response: The Spanish priests in Manila who … do not employ any trained meteorologists used to telegraph storm warnings to the local papers in Hongkong but unless the priests had access [to] telegraphic information from here these warnings were, as a rule, erroneous and misleading as can be easily proved by comparing for instance those telegraphed last year with the tracks of the typhoons subsequently constructed.

War on Manila Operations at the Manila Observatory themselves were curtailed for several months in 1898 — the Americans took Manila on 13 August — and all telegraphic services from the Philippines were suspended.8 Despite the absence of reports from Manila and Bolinao however, the Observatory gave adequate warning of two typhoons that struck in August of that year. In November the director was clearly in a confrontational mood. On the 23rd of the month he wrote an ‘urgent’ note to the colonial secretary, in advance of the arrival of a new governor, informing him that ‘by authority of … of 1893 … the typhoon gun at the Tsimshatsui police station may not be fired to announce the arrival of Sir Henry A. Blake G.C.M.G., which should be done by the shore batteries’.9 However, it was a letter of his earlier in the month that gave rise to the controversy which, of all the many controversies that dogged his career, was the one from which the director comes out with the least credit, although with only minor official chastisement. There arrived in Hong Kong, in March 1899, a letter to the editor of the China Mail from José Algué S.J., director of the Manila Central Observatory. In it Fr. Algué alleged that the director of the British Meteorological Service at Hong Kong had addressed the Weather Bureau of the government of the United States of America in very unfavourable terms regarding the directors of the observatory at Manila, and he [Fr. Algué]


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lamented that their observatory had ‘worked hard for a great many years … but, if, after all, the reputation achieved has been merely that of causing scandal by sensational typhoon warnings, that is a very discouraging result indeed’.10 It appears that in the previous November Doberck had, of his own accord, written to the U.S. Weather Bureau complaining about the Manila Observatory — the Philippines had been under American military administration since August, and this was presumably the earliest opportunity where he might have hoped to have found a hearing in the matter. He stated that that Observatory (he referred to it as ‘the Municipal Observatory in connection with the High School in Manila’)11 was: in the hands of the Spanish priests, who possess very little scientific education, and who derive much of the matter which they print from the publications, weather telegrams etc issued from this Observatory without however in any way acknowledging their indebtedness to this Observatory,

that scandal is caused by the Spanish priests continually communicating sensational typhoon warnings through the Spanish consul to the newspapers in Hong Kong,12

and asking the chief of the Weather Bureau to forbid the Observatory from sending meteorological notices to Hong Kong. He also said how it had been indispensable to have had reports from British observers in the Philippines and that he was anxious to eventually exchange observations with American observers there. The recipient of the letter agreed to his suggestion, but he (formally the U.S. war secretary) went further, on 17 February 1899 forbidding the sending of all typhoon warnings from the Manila Observatory to all places outside the Philippine Islands. The press, and the Chamber of Commerce, in Hong Kong were outraged by this news, and the director’s behaviour was raised in the Legislative Council. An editorial in the Hong Kong Telegraph claimed: Dr Doberck has never issued any typhoon warnings of any value, except those based on warnings from the Philippines and, in most cases, he has endeavoured so to frame his notices so as to conceal his obligations to the observers there … . We make bold to say that Dr. Doberck, as a meteorologist, never possessed a tithe of the knowledge on the subject of typhoons possessed by the Fathers in the Manila Observatory, and that no one ever attached to his weather warnings a hundredth part of the importance invariably given to warnings from Sicawie [sic] and Manila.13

Heretofore The Telegraph, if not an enthusiastic supporter of the director, at least had been tolerant of the situation at the Observatory, but here the Rubicon


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had been crossed, and he appears bereft of all friends. The tone of an editorial in the China Mail a few days later would not come as a surprise: We have consistently called upon three successive Governors of Hong Kong to intervene — so as to prevent the absolute destruction of any little element of usefulness which was apparent at the Kowloon Observatory — by curbing the rude and insulting disposition of the Head of that institution. … the language there quoted as having been used by Dr Doberck is quite familiar to all who have followed the unwise official career of that public officer.14

The other English-language paper in the Colony was equally severe in its sanctions on the director, calling for his official censure, writing that ‘navigators cannot be deprived of valuable storm warnings, and be thereby exposed to disaster, merely because an official of the Hong Kong Government regards the source of those warnings with envy’.15 The imputation of envy was made in other quarters also. Eliza Skidmore, a well-known American travel author of the day, forwarded reports appearing in the Manila papers to Washington concerning, in her words: ‘the suppression of scientific work at the Manila Observatory by unconsidered tyrannical mandate from the American Government. The whole thing is monstrous and irregular as the Government was not asked to persecute and oppress the Jesuit scientists at Manila by the Hong Kong Government official, only the unauthorised request of their jealous meteorologist’.16 The Chamber of Commerce noted their high appreciation of the very valuable services rendered by the Manila Observatory to the mercantile and shipping community in Hong Kong and China, and hoped that the government would intervene to have restrictions recently placed removed. The matter was slightly confused by a second issue which was raised by the director of the Zikawei Observatory, Fr. Louis Froc, who passed through Hong Kong a week after the storm broke in the local papers. In a letter to the governor, Fr. Froc not only expressed the hope that he would induce the U.S. war secretary to come to a contrary decision on the issuing of typhoon warnings at Manila, but also complained that none of the Observatory’s publications had been sent to him for more than a year, and he wondered if official orders had been issued to the Hong Kong Observatory to avoid all relations of any kind with his observatory.17 The director was asked to explain his behaviour in communicating with a foreign government without His Excellency’s permission; it should be noted that the affair was never brought to the attention of the officials in the Colonial Office. His attempts to justify his behaviour relied on the sophistry that he was not in communication with the government of the United States,


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but that his letter was in the nature of routine scientific communication with overseas meteorologists. He still maintained that ‘the warnings telegraphed to Hong Kong from the priests in Manila are mischievous and interfere with the work of this Observatory’18 and hoped to bring the governor round to his way of thinking by sending him the records of typhoon warnings for 1887. But the governor was having none of it. Lockhart, the colonial secretary, pointed out to him that of nineteen typhoons in question, fourteen or fifteen were reproduced in his meteorological register, the information being, in many cases, later than that supplied by the Manila Observatory. Further, he was told that: ‘His Excellency has consulted the Harbour Master and Officers in the Royal Navy and the German Navy as to the practical utility or otherwise of those warnings, and there appears to be but one opinion among them, as among the Mercantile Community, all being agreed as to the value of the warnings and the utility of their early publication in Hong Kong’. He was also advised of His Excellency’s disapproval of his action — this formal rebuke seems to be the limit of the measures taken against him. The U.S. Weather Bureau was also advised of his unauthorized letter, whereupon they revoked the order suppressing the weather telegrams on 3 April. It is, however, of interest to look closer at Doberck’s unpublished responses to the government’s protests, and the requests for information by Zikawei, for they indicate a mentality bordering on paranoia. Among the points Doberck made in his responses was his opinion that ‘these [the Zikawei and Manila Observatories] are irresponsible private institutions and cannot be officially recognised’. And he accused them of plagiarism, ‘The Zikawei and Manila Observatories … derive much of the matter which they print [from his Observations and Researches] without acknowledgement. … I keep them back two years so as to make it evident that the investigations were made here’.19 In a follow-up letter20 he claimed that: the returns from the Manila Observatory are not sufficient as it is situated in the centre of the town and as recordings of the barometer is given to only 1/25th of an inch instead of to 1/100 inch.21 The priests do not [illeg.] instructions and withhold their observations at times when they think that they would be particularly useful to us. That is because they are allowed to send warnings of storms to Hongkong, nearly half of which storms do not exist as can be proved by entries for logbooks of ships.

On a more robust theme, he defended his actions in not sending Observatory publications to Zikawei, because, he asserted:


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One of the objects of the Jesuits is to undermine non-Roman Catholic scientific institutions and for this and similar reasons they have been expelled from most countries. Their hands would be stronger by having the Observations and Researches placed promptly at their disposal. Another injury the immediate transmission will effect is to make the Jesuits continually preferring requests to you.

He maintained that: ‘the Jesuits’ [meteorological] readings which we receive are nearly useless because they are not accurate enough and are received too late’.22 He had an interview with Lockhart, the colonial secretary, who minuted the director’s agreement to in future regularly forward copies of his Observations and Researches to Zikawei, and a request he made at their meeting that ‘in the reply to the Director of Zikawei Observatory nothing might be included which would tend to lead to further and useless controversy upon which the Jesuits seem intent with a view of attracting public attention and sympathy’.23 He clearly got the better of the governor, who also requested to see him on the matter, for in the reply Lockhart was instructed to send to Fr. Froc, he avoiding all issues of contention, writing only that we: feel that much must be left to the discretion of the officer responsible. … His Excellency has every confidence that the Director of the Hong Kong Observatory who appears to be fully sensible of his obligations towards the public … and his brother scientists will not fail to interchange such information as may be consistent with those obligations.24

Doberck expressed a wish that his correspondence with the government not be circulated to the Chamber of Commerce, expecting they would take as much objection to it as they took to his original letter, and observed that he had ‘written hundreds of pages during the past 16 years … but all these writings have in no way modified the ideas upon the subject entertained by the Chamber of Commerce 16 years ago. I might as well argue against Columbkill with an Irish peasant, or against Old Moore’s Almanac with some English peasant’.25 How valid was his assertion that the priests at Manila ‘possess very little scientific education’? Certainly in terms of formal publications, his fame far outshone theirs. But they were far from the level of the Irish peasant to whom he would like people to compare them.26 Federico Faura, who had been director of the Observatory there for nineteen years prior to his death in 1897, as we have seen, had joined an expedition to the Celebes to observe a solar eclipse in 1868, some years before Doberck graduated. He had also spent some time with the leading astronomer Pietro Angelo Secchi in Rome, and a spell at the Stonyhurst Observatory in England, which, at the time, was one of the seven first class meteorological stations of the British Meteorological Office. A modern study claims that by the end of the nineteenth century, ‘[Vines] and his fellow


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Jesuit Father Federico Faura, who was based in Manila, were the most proficient and best known cyclone forecasters in the world. Considering that they did not have radio reports from ships at sea, much less from airplanes or satellites, their contributions to the science of storms and to forecasting were extraordinary’.27 Faura’s successor as director, José Algué, the protagonist in this correspondence, was likewise no lightweight. He had studied mathematics at the University of Barcelona, and had spent three years at Georgetown Observatory in the United States, where significant research on variable stars was in progress. In Doberck’s defence, however, we must note that the chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, Willis L. Moore, vigorously defended the director’s request, and his own instructions to Manila, saying: ‘We shall not reverse our action unless requested to do so by the British Government’,28 which, of course, he was eventually requested to do. Doberck would, no doubt, have been very pleased by other support he found in professional circles. The editor of the Monthly Weather Review, the premier meteorological journal of the day in North America, Cleveland Abbe, strongly took his side in the argument. In April 1899 in an editorial, he made some favourable comments on the Manila Observatory, saying their publications ‘show a laudable energy in the study of typhoons, although based on rather scanty data’, but said, ‘we are not surprised at Dr. Doberck’s complaint of the inaccuracy of the predictions and the harm that they do the public’, without any clarification of the alleged ‘inaccuracy’.29 This was something one imagines the maritime community in Hong Kong might have expressed a contrary opinion on. Cleveland Abbe also wrote: although the Spanish Government has relinquished national rights in the Philippines, yet the Jesuits at the Manila Observatory are loth to surrender their old-time privileges. Through the indulgence of the British and other colonial offices, they have for several years conducted a voluntary storm-warning system for both the Philippines and the adjacent coasts of Asia. … The question now arises, whether our temporary military government in the Philippines should, or should not, respond favorably to the request of the officials at Hongkong, to the effect that the warnings from Manila be confined to the Philippines. If the meteorologists at Manila have anything to communicate relative to storms approaching China, Japan, or colonial stations, such as Hongkong, why can not the communication be sent, as a matter of international courtesy, to the meteorological offices of those places? Why should not the latter bear the responsibility of giving proper local warnings? Why should local papers and harbormasters circulate warnings from irresponsible parties?

Leaving aside the slight of ‘irresponsible parties’, the logic of the argument cannot be easily bypassed, but it does rely to some extent on the matter of ‘international courtesy’ — the very headline the editor gave to his column. Where the Jesuit observatories were concerned, courtesy was not something


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that more informed observers of the day in the Orient would associate with the director. It was not the first, nor would it be the last, time that Doberck found support among his professional colleagues, though everyone around him was calling for his head. The editor ended with the sentiments: ‘it is disastrous to science whenever one man or one institution overrides, absorbs, or destroys the honest work of his neighbours. “Cooperation and not monopoly,” is the only principle that can lead to success in the study and practice of meteorology’. This could be read as a chastisement of Doberck, but we do not know to what extent the North American writer was familiar with regional meteorological politics. In any case, they were not sentiments that were to move Dr. Doberck, and the contempt he felt for the observatories at Manila and Zikawei seems to have been in no way abated thereafter. His subsequent efforts to slight Manila were especially unfortunate, extending to sabotaging more general international meteorological communications in the region. His hope that he would be able to interact with independent American observers in the Philippines was frustrated by the American authorities’ embrace of the Manila Observatory. In September 1899 the American consul wrote to the colonial secretary enquiring whether the Observatory received, via Tokyo, regular reports from the six meteorological stations in Taiwan, and if so could they be forwarded to ‘our’ observatory in Manila.30 Information from Taiwan would clearly be of great value at Manila, if only in preparation of their own local warnings. Consulted in the matter the director wrote: The American consul appears to think that typhoon warnings could be issued from the Manila Observatory if the necessary telegrams were placed at their disposal, but that service is not required as storms in the Far East are, and have for many years, been forecast in Hong Kong and warnings telegraphed from other countries would interfere with Mr Figg’s work.31

This reply was hardly relevant to the request made, but the government apparently indulged their headstrong head of department, and nothing was done. Two years later the director received a letter directly from the Japanese consul asking, in view of the daily exchanges between Hong Kong and Manila and Hong Kong and Japan, would the Hong Kong Observatory agree to transmit Manila observations to Japan and Japanese observations to Manila together with its own observations.32 Doberck’s reply, by return, was: ‘The question of transmission of meteorological telegrams between the Japanese authorities in Formosa and the American authorities in the Philippines is a question for which it is not for me to decide’.33 These are not the only instances of Doberck’s obstruction of inter-observatory communications. As far back as May 1885 the captain of the port of Macao complained to Manila that through the ill-will of Dr. Doberck their warnings sent to Hong Kong were not being communicated to him, and offered to pay the expense of their direct communication.34


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Storm Warnings and the Zikawei Observatory In chapter four we saw how the Observatory, from 1884, had developed a system of warning of storms aimed separately at mariners and the local population. The sources of data available on which the warnings could be based increased but slowly over the years. An important contribution was made in 1892 by the establishment of a lighthouse at Gap Rock, about forty kilometres south of Hong Kong, in telegraphic communication with the Observatory. Unlike the other lighthouses which had been contributing over the years, this one, although in Chinese territorial waters, was not operated by the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, but by the Hong Kong government. Whatever the unavoidable deficiencies in the source data, there were no serious complaints about the nature of the warning signals. It was always the implementation of the system that came in for criticism. It is thus something of a surprise to find an announcement in the Gazette in February 1897 that a new system of storm warnings, which was described as British storm signals, would be introduced immediately.35 This was a very simple system, consisting of just an upward pointing cone indicating strong winds from the North or East, and a downward pointing cone indicating strong winds from the South or West. If a strong gale, which may reach typhoon force, is anticipated a drum is additionally hoisted, at which time a gun is also fired once, with corresponding night signals. One might imagine, mindful of his earlier claims to have invented the previous system, that this change was something that the director was pressured into effecting, but that seems not to be the case. He gave no reason for introducing these drastically simplified signals, in line with those used in England, and the rationale is nowhere spelled out. He would later distinguish these ‘storm signals’ from the earlier ‘meteorological signals’. The signals were used three times in the year of their introduction, the drum and gun necessary only once, and that was the end of them — apparently they were unpopular. Editorials in the China Mail were scathing in their criticism, quoting an authority that: At Shanghai they err on the side of accuracy; here we are absolutely vague. We have “Strong wind probable from the Northward”. If a shipmaster depended upon such a forecast, he might run into the teeth of a hurricane and founder long before the prophecy was verified, except by himself in the Great Beyond. The present Hong Kong signals are useless and misleading and simply furnish an excuse for extortion to the boat and cargo people. They may be, as alleged, similar to those hoisted in the British Isles but the conditions here are entirely dissimilar. … The signals issued in 1890 were more useful than those of last year (now in force) … [These] might with advantage, and without requiring too great precision, have been improved upon by reporting gales to the N. E. (using the North-cone above the drum) [etc.].36


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This was all in the context of welcoming a new set of storm signals developed at Zikawei and known as the China Coast Code, which went into effect at Shanghai and Chefoo on 1 January 1898. The director had to yield to this opinion, writing in his annual report for 1897 that ‘in spite of the great advantages accruing from the adoption of the system of storm-signals in use in England and other countries’ it was decided to revert to the previous system — without the suggested improvements. This, he said, was at the insistence of the Chamber of Commerce, who were of the opinion that: those [signals], having been in use for thirteen years were becoming gradually more and more understood and rightly interpreted by the boat and seafaring peoples as the time went on. … They likewise convey to masters of ships intimations of the state of the weather at a distance on the voyages on which they are about to sail, information which the present storm warnings do not supply.

How these rather obvious facts tie in with his perceived ‘great advantages’ of the simple system Doberck does not say, and from 29 January 1898 his original signal scheme was restored. The tendency of the administration in Hong Kong to give Doberck the benefit of the doubt in any conflict with outside authorities, as exemplified by the response to Fr. Froc’s representations from Shanghai in 1899, and the response to the American consul’s letter, would be seen again in 1902. In 1899 the governor had assured Froc at Zikawei of his confidence that the director of the Hong Kong Observatory was fully sensible of his obligations towards the public and his brother scientists, and would not fail to interchange such information as was consistent with those obligations. And, despite his ignoring them, Zikawei were polite in their responses, one of the priests writing to the Shanghai press in December 1899 saying that he expected the recent meteor showers had been observed at Hong Kong with experienced accuracy, from where results might be obtained: ‘the determination of orbits having always been a favourite to its highly qualified Director’.37 But in April of 1902 the Chamber of Commerce was alerted to the fact that Doberck still (regularly) refused to accept messages from the Zikawei Observatory.38 That, indeed, Doberck refused all his notices was confirmed by the director of the Shanghai Observatory, who added that, a year earlier, Doberck had even attempted to have all meteorological telegrams from the Imperial Maritime Customs stations to Zikawei stopped. The Hong Kong Chamber pointed out that the absence of storm warnings from that quarter had led to the loss of one ship, and almost the loss of another, on their way to Japan in the previous year, the warning issued by the Hong Kong Observatory for north-going vessels being much later than Zikawei’s warning for those


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headed south. In a letter to the colonial secretary, the Chamber said they were strongly of the opinion that neither professional jealousy nor disapproval of the methods of other meteorological establishments should be allowed to influence Dr. Doberck, and that they hoped the government would take steps to secure reciprocal exchange of storm warnings with all meteorological establishments in the Far East. The letter also raised the issue of adopting a complete code of flag signals at the port to provide masters of ships with full weather information. They added: ‘it may be useful, as some guide to what is required, to mention that Shanghai possesses a code of signals worked on information supplied by the Sicawei Observatory at various hours during the day, which is admittedly the best in the Far East’. Figg was acting director at the time. When he was contacted in the matter by the government, he wrote a memorandum in which he disputed the details of the alleged shipwrecks, and forcefully justified ignoring messages from Zikawei. Part of his argument for the latter was that since they were already getting data from the Imperial Maritime Customs station at Shanghai and from the nearby Gutzlaff lighthouse, data from another station at the same location would be of no help. He also had arguments against a flag system of signals — too complicated for local craft, not visible from a distance in calm weather, etc. — concluding that flag signals were not suited to local requirements. In forwarding all this to the Chamber of Commerce, F. H. May, the colonial secretary, wrote: His Excellency is of the opinion that the Hong Kong Observatory cannot be made responsible for the storm warning of other institutions, and … it would serve no useful purpose for observations to be also received from the Sicawei Observatory. … [he] has also arrived at the conclusion that an alteration in the Hong Kong system of signalling storms is not desirable.39

This slighting of the Zikawei Observatory, in cold scientific terms, of course, was in no way improper, but the fact was that the Jesuit Observatory was an internationally recognized meteorological centre, and its praises were often sung in the Shanghai press by the maritime community in that port, not a body of men one would think of as being swayed by emotion or religious sentiment. The governor at the time was Sir Henry Blake, the same one who showed sympathy for Doberck’s case against Zikawei back in 1899. The Chamber of Commerce again contested some of the claims in the colonial secretary’s reply, in particular pointing out that ‘the observations made at Sicawei must surely furnish more accurate data than can be supplied by a possibly untrained though doubtless intelligent observer at any of the coast stations such as Gutzlaff’, and reiterated how they felt it ‘to be more or less a reproach to this Colony … that the Observatory is not in touch with, or at all events is not in sympathetic relationship with the kindred institution at Sicawei’.


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As we have seen, Figg had been rather self-effacing, and not given to taking positions one way or another, on the many controversial issues that occupied his boss. Now, however, already almost twenty years in position and entrusted with all meteorological aspects, and when his boss was away, with the whole operation of the Observatory, he finally came out from under his master’s shadow. He was commended as ‘the energetic Acting Director’ in the Telegraph in July.40 He began forcefully to espouse Doberck’s philosophy, being dismissive of ‘such vague matter[s] as “want of sympathetic” and “friendly relations” … with other institutions’. In a pugnacious letter to the colonial secretary he wrote: the state of things may appear ‘lamentable’ to the Committee [of the Chamber of Commerce] but it only shows its utter ignorance of the course of scientific enquiry. … That the Committee find it difficult to understand that a station like Gutzlaff freely exposed off the coast furnishes better data for forecasting purposes than an Observatory situated inland is very likely. Those who understand the subject will, however, find no such difficulty.41

He went on the offensive further with: ‘The Hong Kong Observatory has the courage of its own opinions and does not ask that they shall be bolstered up by the results of other investigators, however eminent’. A cold reading of such opinions should elicit sympathy for the purely scientific ethos they proclaim, but it is unlikely that the Chamber of Commerce, or anyone else in Hong Kong, read them in this way. For they knew what the history illustrates, that Doberck, from day one, was frustrated in his ambition to be the top China Coast meteorologist, and Hong Kong to be the pivotal station, and never came to terms with the obstacles Manila and especially Zikawei presented to this ambition. The Chamber also brought up other cases of alleged recent inadequate storm warnings, but Figg again strongly defended his signals, and accused two ship’s captains of recklessness in ignoring them. The chairman of the Chamber of Commerce could only observe how little effect the Chamber’s agitation had had, but thought they must rest content with such small gains, noting that: the Acting Director of the Observatory was not to be persuaded just now into making further changes, and, possibly as his was only an acting appointment, this attitude can well be understood, but, so long as this position continues, it was evident that Hong Kong would have to be content with a second-class system of making weather warnings generally known.42


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Following on a letter of complaint signed by the masters of thirty-eight steamers, the Chamber set up its own committee of enquiry, and forwarded its conclusions to government.43 We do not have access to this report, but it does seem to have been influential in further government policy because by the end of the year the Chamber’s suggestions were fully complied with.

NORTH

NORTH EAST

EAST

SOUTH EAST

SOUTH

SOUTH WEST

WEST

NORTH WEST

Fig. 14. Hong Kong signals code in 1904.

The contrast made in 1898 of the Hong Kong signals, which recognized only four quarters, with the more direction-specific signals employed at Zikawei persisted, but for the next six years had no apparent influence at the Observatory. However, from 1 January 1904 the Observatory announced an extension of its system of signals by the addition of four more so that eight compass directions were distinguished — just as the China Mail had originally suggested.44 These signals, which are shown in Fig. 14, would be hoisted, as heretofore, beside the time-ball at Kowloon Point. At the same time the acting director informed the public that: ‘at the request of the Hong Kong Chamber


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of Commerce the Government also decided to adopt the Shanghai Flag system of signaling meteorological information’. This was none other than the China Coast Code developed at Zikawei, as requested by the Chamber of Commerce. These signals would be hoisted on a newly erected mast at Signal Hill (Blackhead’s Hill) in Kowloon. The first we hear of the adoption of these signals is the approval of a request at the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in September 1903 for $204, the cost of flags required for weather signals, followed the next month by a request for a further $2510 for an eighty-two-foot-high mast for their display.45 There was some discussion before approval was given, the chairman stating that the request was at the behest of the Chamber of Commerce, who thought the current system not sufficient and wanted a far more elaborate system. The China Coast Code was a much more informative, and necessarily complicated, set of over a hundred signals46 — but why the duplication? Certainly the China Coast Code would be sufficient, but learning it would take quite an effort, and the familiar signals would probably be preferred by locals, on land or afloat. A reluctance on the part of Doberck and Figg to surrender their long-embraced system in favour of a system arising from, of all places, Zikawei, also can hardly have played

Fig. 15. Marryat’s signals code.


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a minor role in the decision. The Code distinguished typhoon and continental depression signals from gale signals. The former were signalled by a two-digit number between 01 and 90, using Marryat’s code (see Fig. 15) indicating the location of the storm, and a further two-digit number between 91 and 00 (or such a two-digit number followed by a blue ball) indicating the probable motion of the centre. The letter V added to the signal indicated the immediate vicinity of the place denoted by the Code. As an example the illustration (read as 40-98Ball) would warn of a storm located to the south-west of Taiwan, probably moving in the NNW direction.

Gales were denoted by the letter G followed by a two-digit even number in the range 02 to 32 representing the direction of blow plus a single letter from among those shown in Fig. 15 indicating the approximate location. It is not clear how successful this system was. Figg’s particular objection of its unsuitability under calm conditions must have held some validity, and in fact it only lasted for two years. On 1 January 1906 a new mode of signalling the Code went into force at Zikawei, and with the blessings of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, at all the coastal ports, and also at Hong Kong.47 This was a reworking of the existing flag code using symbols, rather than flags, shown in Fig. 16. The number of locations recognized for typhoons was increased from 71 to 100 (not all the previous locations, e.g. the Marianas and the Carolines, were retained), and the number for tropical depressions from 18 to 20. Typhoons and

Fig. 16. Zikawei China Coast Code in 1906.


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continental depressions were signalled with a three-letter location symbol and a two-letter symbol for direction of motion, and gales by a two-word symbol for the direction of the wind and a single symbol for the region likely to be affected. As an example the illustration (read as 214-SW) would warn of a storm located between Hainan and the Paracels and moving south-westerly.

These signals in parallel with the 1904 code (slightly modified after the storm of 1906, to be described shortly) would essentially remain in force for the remainder of the period of our study. In Fig. 17 we show signals displayed on Blackhead’s Hill sometime after January 1908, when a new time-ball tower was constructed. We return to domestic developments at the Observatory to set the scene for the events of those final years.

Fig. 17. China Coast code signals displayed on Blackhead’s Hill sometime after January 1908, when the time-ball tower was constructed. Courtesy of the Information Services Department of the Hong Kong SAR Government.


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A Storm in 1906 Doberck retired in 1907 at age fifty-five. It may have been that he felt twentyfour years in the tropics were enough, or he may have hankered after the life of a gentleman astronomer, which was to be his fate. But, equally likely, he may have been encouraged to go; his original contract did provide for retirement on full pension at age fifty-five. However the compulsory retirement age at the time was sixty-five, one which Plummer attained in his service. Some time before March 1907, when it was noted in London, the decision that he would retire in the following September was taken. He had long antagonized the authorities both in Hong Kong and in London, and one more episode of sparring with the government may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In May 1906 the Observatory was chastised for the inconvenience and loss it caused to the local community through raising a typhoon signal which proved to be abortive.48 A cynical reading of events later in the year would have the director taking his revenge on his critics in September. On the 17th of the month, the China Mail carried a report from the magistracy of a case that morning where thirty-five sampan owners were fined two dollars each, and bound over in a sum of $20 to be of good behaviour for two months, for having loitered in the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter a day longer than was judged necessary. But there had been a typhoon signal the previous week — did they know something? At midday on the same day the Observatory issued its weather forecast which the Mail carried the next day, Tuesday 18 September. It read: ‘Variable winds, moderate; probably some thunder showers’. The winds would, indeed, turn out to be variable, but far from moderate, for on the morning of 18 September Hong Kong was struck by a typhoon more destructive than any other recorded in modern times. The first storm signal went up at 8:00 a.m., but before any evasive action could be taken the storm had swept down on the colony, and by 11 a.m. it was all over, but with enormous loss in ships, and in lives estimated by one source at more than 10,000 — very likely including the thirty-five sampan owners on their best behaviour bond.49 Among the others lost was the Anglican bishop of Hong Kong. There was outrage in the local press at the failure of the Observatory to give advance warning. On the very afternoon of the storm the China Mail was clamouring for an inquiry: ‘to see what justification exists for the expenditure of public money on an institution which does not return value for such expenditure’, 50 and the editor asked a few days later: ‘[do] we have a perfectly equipped and officered astronomical station and meteorology is rather contemptuously relegated to the second place?’ Two days later, in the Legislative Council, Governor Nathan called it ‘a catastrophe as calamitous, if not more, than any which has previously befallen the Colony’, and, noting the very unfavourable comment on the Observatory


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in the local press, announced that he was setting up a four-man committee of enquiry into its failure to raise earlier signals. The atmosphere in the Council was, however, not of unanimous hostility to the Observatory. The representative of the Chamber of Commerce, Edbert Ansgar Hewett,51 while noting that: ‘through a little want of friendliness or reciprocity on the part of some of the officials we have not had the fullest possible benefit from the observatory which we are entitled to expect’, nevertheless shared the opinion ‘that the finding of the commission will be that it will exonerate the Director and staff of the Observatory’. The governor was encouraged to extend the remit of the commission to look into the administration of the Observatory generally, an unofficial member Dr. Ho Kai wanting to know if the relations with Manila and Shanghai were of such a cordial nature as to enable the Observatory to receive proper warning of the approach of typhoons. Governor Nathan agreed to do so, but cancelled this charge later when he became aware of Doberck’s pending retirement. Long very unpopular with the local press and marine community, Doberck seemed to face a formidable grilling from such a public enquiry; the Jesuits in particular would be keen to bring him down. In their journal The Month, they claimed that their Zikawei Observatory had given two days’ notice to Hong Kong of the impending storm but that the director ignored all messages from their observatories in Shanghai and Manila, and the events of 1899 were again spelt out in great detail.52 The four men on the committee were Sir Henry Berkeley, who was a legislative councillor, a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, the superintendent of the telegraph company and a master mariner — not a composition that met with the favour of the local press editors, who thought that serving mariners should be more strongly represented. The local press also gave prominence to aspects to which they thought the commission should pay special attention, the South China Morning Post, in particular, giving much space to reports from Manila on the status of relations with the Hong Kong Observatory, and to the alleged prediction of the storm by Zikawei.53 The Hong Kong Daily Press wanted answers to two questions: was the Observatory conducted on the principle of ‘glorious isolation’, preferring to be self-contained and to rely on a purely colonial group of data-collecting material; and was it true that the Observatory could increase its practical utilitarian usefulness by paying less attention to academic branches of kindred science, adding that after its founding ‘the demand for astronomical observations was a subsequent and super-added fad, harmless if it could be relegated to its proper, secondary place’?54 The commission’s proceedings were published in full in a fifty-eight-page report.55 Over four days, ten witnesses were interviewed, including Doberck, Figg, the French consul in Hong Kong and several ships’ captains. The consul, Mr. Gaston Liébert, led the attack on the Observatory, but it was well defended


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by Doberck, aided by the normally reticent Figg, who lamented ‘that attempts are constantly being made in certain quarters to embitter public opinion against the Observatory’. Apart from the French consul, there was unanimity on unexceptional pre-existing local conditions, the only disagreement being on how early on the morning of the 18th warning signs might have been detected, one captain claiming to have ordered precautions to be taken at 06:30, whereas another, ashore, did not see any urgency in joining his ship until 08:30. Because there had been no threatening signs the night before, and so no special watch, the earliest observations at the Observatory were by Figg at 07:44. Consul Liébert, in notes written after the event, said that he had been strongly convinced of an imminent storm for the two days previous, but his claims found no support from other witnesses. The second question was whether any warning had been provided by outside sources. The well-known lack of harmony between Hong Kong and the observatory at Manila, although not directly relevant, was raised more than once, but vehemently denied by the director. It was alleged that two days’ advance notice of the typhoon had been given by the observatory at Zikawei, but it is hard to see this from the published reports. In their daily report for the 15th, Zikawei had ‘a new centre moving towards Formosa from S of Meiaco Sima’, while the Hong Kong Observatory had ‘pressure slightly lower in the neighbourhood of S of Formosa than elsewhere’. On the 16th Zikawei had ‘centre nearly stationary at Formosa’, and on the 17th, ‘the [depression] reported at Formosa fills up gradually’, while the Hong Kong Observatory had no mention of abnormal conditions in those parts on either day. From 1 July of 1906 the Zikawei Observatory had started to publish synoptic charts. The relevant charts, for 16, 17, 18 and 19 September were introduced in evidence. It can be seen from an inspection of these diagrams (see Fig. 18) that while there may have been some cause for attention on that day, 16 September, there was not a hint of a disturbance at 6 a.m. two days later on the day of the typhoon. On the 18th there is an unexplained dearth of isobars south of Taiwan. In the chart for the following day, 19 September, which was also included in the report, there is the same lack of data, but a message ‘no telegram’ was inserted in that part of the chart. No reference was made in the report to the fact that this could also have been the case on the 18th, rendering the chart less definitive; on one side presumably because it might weaken their case, on the other because it might reflect adversely on the performance of the priests at Manila.


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Fig. 18. Zikawei weather charts for September 1906.


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The Observatory was yet again exonerated; the committee acknowledged that the storm more resembled a tornado than a typhoon. This agreed with Doberck’s contention, although he did not deign to invoke the Manila Observatory’s discovery of such very compact typhoons reported by Faura twenty-seven years earlier. Nor, surprisingly, did anyone refer to the director’s own words in his annual report for 1897 that typhoons: about which little was known in 1883 when the Observatory was built, have since been so thoroughly investigated [by him] that they are now among the best understood atmospheric disturbances in the world, and it is almost certain that any amount of further investigation based on observations made here or on board vessels at sea would add nothing whatever to our knowledge.

It was a very localized storm, neither Macao nor Canton being affected. At 10:00 a.m. when the wind at the Observatory was force 11 it was recorded as force 1 at Macao, only sixty kilometres away. The committee agreed that prior to 07:44 on that day there was no indication of a typhoon approaching Hong Kong, and that warning was given as soon as practically possible. Notwithstanding the pre-existing widespread hostility to the director, with the exception of the South China Morning Post, there was not much public dissent from the committee’s conclusions. In a letter to a newspaper one amateur meteorologist flatly contradicted the claims of the French consul on the cloud cover in the two days previous to the storm, saying that even up to 07:30 on the day of the storm there was no cloud indication that a typhoon was close.56 So much damage was done to local craft that it seems that traditional lore in foretelling an approaching storm was no more effective than the scientific approach at the Observatory, but one letter writer complained that some surviving boat boys accompanying the ill-fated Bishop Hoare should have been interviewed by the committee. According to him, the boat boys warned the Bishop as early as six o’clock in the morning on his boat, anchored somewhere in Deep Bay, that a typhoon was approaching and that it was unwise to set out. He, however, insisted that he had to get back to Hong Kong, and despite the warnings they set out on their fateful journey. Other Chinese also, the writer claimed, saw signs of a storm before seven o’clock on the morning of the 18th, and should have been interviewed.57 The South China Morning Post, while declaiming: [nor] do we approve of any movement which may have for its object the hounding out of office of any qualified man, but we do maintain that the greatest catastrophe which has ever befallen our Colony might have been robbed of its force had the Government and the Government officials been conscious of their responsibilities,58


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devoted many column inches, before the committee met, to the case for earlier existence of a warning from Zikawei. Its response to the report was surprise at ‘the verdict arrived at in face of the mass of official information which has been published, if not submitted, to the court of inquiry. We do not subscribe to [their] finding and we are not alone in our opinion’.59 The governor may have been among these dissenters. Presumably not entirely satisfied, and under some pressure to find fault with the Observatory generally, he forwarded the committee’s report to London, noting: ‘generally stated the working of the Observatory is hampered by the unsatisfactory relations between its Director and the Jesuits in charge of the Manila and Zikawei Stations, a statement to which colour is given by a report published on 23rd September [by] Zikawei suggesting earlier prediction was possible.’60 This latter report was possibly at the instigation of the French consul (a French torpedo boat destroyer in port, with its crew of five was lost) who complained bitterly to the commission about the obviousness, to him, of a typhoon approaching. The governor included this report, as well as one from Fr. Algué of the Manila Observatory who had produced a chart showing what he alleged was the position of the depression on ten successive days, in his dispatches to London, with a request that the opinion of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich on the matter be obtained.61 The astronomer royal (W. H. M. Christie, the same as recommended Doberck’s appointment twenty-four years earlier) reported promptly, ignoring any possible role of rivalry with the Jesuits, saying that he could find no reason to disagree with the committee’s conclusions: ‘a review of the evidence placed before the Committee of investigation points to the conclusion that the finding of the Committee was practically inevitable’ and ‘there remains no question of dereliction of duty at the Observatory’.62 He was particularly dismissive of the representations from Zikawei, saying that there was no evidence that the storm of which they gave notice on the 15th was the one that struck Hong Kong on the 18th, and even if it was, their failure to give any indication that Hong Kong was threatened invalidated their contention that warning was given and ignored. Of course he may not have been aware of Doberck’s habit of ignoring all messages from Zikawei. It is difficult, on the basis of the evidence presented, to disagree with that opinion, although the Zikawei Observatory, notwithstanding their synoptic charts, still insisted in 1909 that it was the storm that they had identified on the 15th of the month,63 not forewarned, as some maintained, ‘because Hong Kong did not want the warning’.64 While it is clear that nobody warned Hong Kong of the approach of the storm, the real story behind the path of this typhoon is of interest, if only because it highlights the practical deficiencies in the storm warning system of the time.


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It is interesting that Saderra Masó from the Manila Observatory, in his book, says only that it was a very compact typhoon which had crossed Batan Island (where it also caused damage), essentially undetected by the Philippines Meteorological Service or by the Japanese in Formosa and that Doberck, deprived of his usual sources of forewarning, knew nothing of it until it struck the Colony.65 He makes no mention of the claims of his French confreres at Zikawei. But, we must ask if the storm had any relation to the depression described, but later downplayed, by Zikawei a few days earlier. The only positive coordinate we have for it is, according to one of the captains at the court of enquiry, Pedro Blanco, only fifty miles east of Hong Kong at midnight on the 17th. The commissioners, from their own analysis of recorded data, concluded that there was a ‘gale of wind in the Formosa channel on the 17th apparently travelling NNW’, which neither in the assumed direction of motion, nor the time available, would make it a plausible candidate for the 1906 storm. It was little noted that a storm, which resulted in the loss of two ships, hit Formosa on the 18th.66 Figg, in his paths of typhoons for 1906, showed a track eastwards from Hong Kong to about 117°E on the 17th, further extrapolated as a dashed line south eastwards to 120°E on the 16th, implying its origin there.67 In a major compilation of tracks completed in 1948 Starbuck also had a definite track as far east as 117°E, with a dashed extension ending at about 122°E in the Balingtan Channel on the 15th of the month, right over the Batan Islands, where Saderra Masó claimed the storm had passed undetected by the Manila Observatory.68 Starbuck’s compilation was updated by Chin ten years later, making use of, among other things, ‘a great part of the missing records for the years 1897–1940’ recently discovered in Hong Kong.69 Chin extends Starbuck’s track, still in dashed form, from the Batan Islands far to the east where he places it at about 145°E, near Pagan Island in the Marianas, on 7 September. In fact the history of the typhoon was quite early elucidated by the Manila Observatory, after the event. According to them, as reported in the South China Morning Post the storm started around the 8th of the month in the Marianas and reached Santo Domingo de Basco in the Luzon Strait on the afternoon of the 15th, where, with characteristics similar to those recorded in Hong Kong, i.e. of narrow extent, it wreaked havoc, but with no loss of life.70 Local warnings for the inhabitants of Santo Domingo were issued throughout the day by the ‘second class observer’ there, but it otherwise passed largely undetected. Santo Domingo at the time was not in telegraphic communication with the outside world, the urgency of such connection being the major lesson of the whole story. There is one confirmatory report along these lines. On the afternoon of the 15th the USN transporter Caesar en route from Manila to Shanghai experienced strong NW winds at latitude 20°N. Although this report was coopted by Zikawei into its case for having foretold the threat to Hong Kong,


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one has to question if this observation bore any relation to the ‘centre moving towards Formosa from S of Meiaco Sima’ described in Zikawei’s report for the same day (Meiaco Sima is almost 25°N, at least 550 kilometres from any point on the track that Fr. Algué proposed for the Hong Kong typhoon, and everyone agreed that it was a storm of very compact dimensions). It seems almost certain that the Hong Kong storm was not a development of the depression spoken of by Zikawei as being over Taiwan on the 16th, although it may be related to the commission’s own conclusion about a gale of wind in the Taiwan straits on the 17th, and there is no doubt that Zikawei did not warn Hong Kong of its coming in any credible way. It is understandable that the Jesuits, in view of how he had slighted them over the years, might have wished to cast the director in a bad light, but both their claims, that Zikawei warned of the approach of the storm, repeated as recently as 2003 — even if he had read their messages — and that Doberck was found negligent in the matter, are false.71 In a letter in response to the astronomer royal’s report Froc still insisted that it was the storm Zikawei had announced, but agreed that on the 15th or 18th no warning was ignored, ‘because none was sent because we knew that it would not have been received’.72 One consequence of the storm was the setting up of a small committee in February 1907 to look into the need to make changes to the storm warning system. It consisted of the harbour master, a nominee of the commodore and a nominee of the Chamber of Commerce. It wrote a short report, not published, suggesting the addition of an ‘urgent’ signal in the event of full typhoon force winds being anticipated in the form of three explosive bombs to be set off at ten-second intervals, and the hoisting of a black cross above the signals already displayed. In addition a cone would be hoisted at outlying stations, Gap Rock, Waglan, etc. to inform passers-by that storm signals were hoisted in the harbour, and a revised scheme of light signals for night warning was recommended. These not very major modifications were adopted, and notified in May 1907.73

Doberck Departs Doberck did not stay long after the tumultuous events of that year. There are different views on the circumstances under which he left his position. The earliest date at which he could do so and collect full retirement benefits was 12 September 1907, when he would reach the age of fifty-five, and, according to the governor, this was indeed the day he chose.74 There must, however, be some suspicion that he was encouraged to depart at that earliest possible opportunity. Certainly the Jesuits were of this opinion. Communications with the government in the aftermath of the storm were decidedly unfriendly. The origin of this particular antagonism was a minute by Doberck, undated, but in January 1907, on proposals circulating for an improved system of storm warning signals, he wrote:


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Early China Coast Meteorology the signals hoisted on Blackhead’s Hill are useless and mischievous, and Sir Henry Blake who (in diametrical opposition to the opinions of all his technical advisers) ordered them took care to keep them away from the Police Station, and leave alone the signals hoisted there. Night signals on Blackhead’s Hill (which would have been worse than useless) were forbidden by His Excellency Sir Matthew Nathan.

He continued: ‘To keep lamps (to simply repeat information already given by day) burning at night on every occasion would be possible, but useless, and would give unnecessary trouble to the Police’.75 When the circulating document reached the governor (May was acting, due to Nathan’s injuries in a fall), he presumably took objection to the tenor of the reference to the previous governor, addressing the colonial secretary in a further minute: I must express my surprise at the tone adopted in the minute of the Director of the Observatory in commenting on proposals which have much to recommend them, made by an officer of H.M.’s Navy. … The language used by Dr Doberck is calculated to shake one’s confidence in his fitness to occupy the position he fills.76

The colonial secretary was instructed to write to the director in this context, which he did on the very same day, 15 January 1907. Unfortunately that letter is not in the files, and so we do not have any explicit suggestion that Doberck ought to retire. Nor do we know exactly when Doberck wrote to inform the governor of his intention to retire in the coming September, but a memo from him outlining the qualifications he thought his successor required is dated 30 January. Saderra Masó, in his history of the Manila Observatory, says that Doberck was faulted with lack of vigilance in monitoring the typhoon and relieved of his post by the English admiralty.77 This is certainly not true, but the actual circumstances of his departure are an open question. The director went on leave, gazetted in June 1907 although without any customary mention of ‘prior to retirement’, and his retirement on pension was gazetted in September. There were no farewell receptions or speeches, no decorated scrolls from his staff or the community, nor any other acknowledgement of his twenty-four-year stint as head of a government department during a formative period for Hong Kong, possibly the longest-ever serving head — certainly of the Observatory — in the history of the Colony. One could easily expect to find a lane, a street or a square named after him, as are to be found named after several more transient figures; Faura has a street named after him in Manila, and was featured on a postage stamp. There would be a Price Road, a Stewart Terrace, a Blake Pier, a May Building, even, in time, a Hennessy Road, but no Doberck anything; in fact it is difficult to find any mention of him in the


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historical records. Misspelled ‘Dorbeck’, he does appear in Carl Smith’s 140,000 card index of Hong Kong personalities and institutions,78 but he does not appear in Eitel’s histories (although they overlapped for about ten years) nor is he to be found in the indexes of eleven of twelve histories of the Colony surveyed. He is not mentioned in Endacott’s Biographical Sketchbook of Early Hong Kong or in Jarrett’s Old Hong Kong. Even in accounts of the history of the Observatory he gets little more than passing mention. The editors of the local English-language newspapers seem to have forgone expressions of any delight they may have felt at his departure — although the editor of the China Mail may have been wishing him a speedier departure than was seemly when, on 15 May, he reported that Figg had been appointed director vice Doberck retired. Three weeks later on 8 June he informed his readers that Figg had been appointed director from 28 May during the absence of Doberck on leave.79

The Chief Assistant The person who might have been expected to take the limelight on Doberck’s departure was his chief assistant, Mr. Plummer, but in the light of events already related we are not surprised to see him bypassed once again. As we have seen, essentially an astronomer, he, perforce, had to take some interest in meteorology. He was in charge of forecasting while Figg was away in 1904 and is listed as contributing to mapping the typhoon tracks in 1908 and 1909. His only publication while at the Observatory was a tract, in 1910, on the origin of typhoons; a copy is shown in Fig. 19.80 It is a scarce document: a 1947 catalogue of items in the Observatory library, in the introduction to which it is stated that the library survived the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong almost intact, does not list a copy. It can only be described as scientifically eccentric; Dr. Doberck gets some mention, but it was not an official Observatory publication, and it is probable that Figg, as director at the time and a man who had made himself very knowledgeable about typhoons but who gets no mention, refused to give it his imprimatur. The book was an elaboration of a public lecture with the same title that Plummer gave earlier in the year. It was noticed in the Hong Kong Telegraph where the reviewer wrote: ‘whether it will be accepted by the scientific world is another question but the work is certain to establish the reputation of Mr. Plummer as an original and profound thinker and one who must be reckoned with in the future’.81 It was described in his obituary in another local paper as ‘a valuable little treatise’,82 but it seems that few others saw it as such. At a time when mainstream theories of typhoons already encompassed their origin over very warm regions of ocean, and their circulation at least triggered by the earth’s rotation,83 Plummer’s first conclusion was that ‘the earliest beginnings of typhoons must be sought for on land, and not at sea’.84 He did not have


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much formal education, and concepts like latent heat and Coriolis force in a rotating frame were probably outside his vocabulary. The publication drew little attention; the only citation of it I have seen is by Jeffries and Heywood in their 1938 pamphlet The Law of Storms in the China Sea. Their observation that: J I Plummer formulated a highly speculative theory in which the larger islands in these regions are credited with the genesis of ascending air columns, resulting in cyclonic circulation in the higher levels of the atmosphere, which, initially borne eastwards, become apparent at the surface of the earth (or ocean) at a great distance from their origins, from whence their paths conform with recorded observations,

may account for this scant attention — and even, from embarrassment, for its absence from the Observatory library.

Fig. 19. Plummer’s pamphlet on typhoons.


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‘Typhoon Annie’: The Only Female Meteorologist Despite the earlier attempts to tie her contract of employment to that of her brother, Anna succeeded in retaining her position after William’s departure, and this is an opportune moment to catch up with her role in the Observatory and her contributions to meteorology. It was always the expectation that Anna would not be a major player in the Observatory, more a cook-cum-factotum than a regular member of the male-dominated sphere of activity, but, in fact, we can now recognize her career as emblematic of a rare species of the time, a female meteorologist. The emergence of early female participants on the scientific scene in the nineteenth-century West, especially in mathematics and the physical subjects, is now frequently remarked on. Even in cases where no great distinction was achieved, just revealing the handicapped potential of many of these women is an interesting story, and an encouragement to those who would emulate them in the modern world. Beyond education and nursing it would be difficult to find fields where female government employees in nineteenth-century Hong Kong might be encountered, but Anna provides that exception.85 Definitive articles on early women astronomers exist86 but little if anything has been written on meteorologists — although they operated in much the same milieu — and nothing on Anna excepting the observation by a later director of the Hong Kong Observatory that she ‘could be considered as one of the first port meteorological officers’.87 We have already seen the contortions that attended her appointment. Her initial three-year appointment, at a salary of $1000, should have come up for renewal in 1895, but this procedure was overlooked (conveniently on her brother’s part, presumably) and the governor had to apologize for the oversight when he wrote to the Colonial Office in November 1896 to request her continuing in the post.88 The officials there considered the possibility of making the appointment permanent, rehashed, with tongue in cheek, the old history: since her brother states the assistant is required to be at his ‘beck and call any hour of the day or night’ it seems to me that Miss D. could hardly wish to retain the post under another man. It has been suggested that the successor should be required as a condition of appointment to marry Miss D., but we can hardly insist on that. … I should be inclined to write confidentially to the Governor pointing out that Dr. D’s description of the nature of the work renders it undesirable to appoint his sister permanently.89


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The final outcome, a dispatch of 14 December 1896, was that she should continue in the post but the appointment would not be made permanent.90 The governor, Sir William Robinson, was not entirely happy with this instruction, and ventured to write by return, saying he thought it seemed somewhat hard that her services should not be regarded as entitling her to a pension, and wished that her case be favourably considered in that context. The reply from London was none too conciliatory: she could retain her position as long as her brother was director, but her right to a pension was not conceded (‘because it would open the door to several other claims’).91 After her brother ceased to hold his post, if it was not possible to offer her suitable employment under the Hong Kong government her claims to a compassionate allowance ‘on the lines granted under [certain ordinances] …’ would be favourably considered. The relevant regulations provided for compensation at 75% of the appropriate pension for persons who reached retiring age with at least fifteen years’ service. She did remain in post after Dr. Doberck’s departure and it seems that pensionable terms were eventually offered to her. Although she never got entitlement to housing, from 1 May 1912 she was granted a ‘personal allowance’ of $600 per year, which brought her salary up to $1800. This was the sum that was used to establish her pension entitlement on retirement three years later. Anna’s main job, at least in the early years, was to act as meteorological liaison officer with ships — though we can hardly rule out the addition of domestic chores. William did not marry until late 1894. Her brother thought to augment the data on tropical storms collected locally and via telegraph from other stations with information available in ships’ logs, and it was her job to visit ships when they arrived in port and transcribe such information from their logs. She also combed logs forwarded directly to the Observatory for relevant entries, and later put some order on the data, to study typhoon trajectories and to construct so-called pilot charts. To quote from her brother’s annual report for 1893: By aid of such charts, when constructed, a shipmaster will know the normal conditions as regards wind, weather and pressure in the latitude and longitude his vessel may at the time happen to be situated in, and this, combined with a knowledge of the ‘Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas’, should be of great assistance to him and enable him to so navigate his vessel as to avoid typhoons. They will, in fact, serve to some extent in lieu of stormwarnings at sea, besides being valuable as shewing the most favourable routes at all times.

The ideal situation would have been to have a number of observers uniformly distributed at various distances from Hong Kong, who would report, without delay, the simultaneously determined local meteorological parameters. From these a time-slice of conditions throughout the region could be viewed


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at successive times and an understanding obtained of the dynamics of weather patterns as a basis for forecasting. While there was some hope of approximating such an ideal using land-based observers, recording data at designated times and reporting to the Observatory promptly, there was no way this could be achieved over the much more expansive ocean. There was, however, a lot of maritime traffic in these seas, and logs of the meteorological situation kept by ships’ officers could be made use of. When later reduced and collated, such data would enable synoptic charts of the situation at some earlier times to be drawn, the study of which could reveal valuable information on the dynamics of storms. Among the important parameters were the barometric pressure, the wind strength and direction and the temperature. Frustration in systematically capturing such data can be easily imagined — the accuracy with which the readings were made, and could be made, on board ship, the diligence of the responsible crew in carrying out the task, the fact that some of the potentially most interesting data would coincide with a raging storm, etc. were all factors which would detract from the ideal. Even so, the approach had been shown to be valuable and had been pursued elsewhere for the previous thirty years, with considerable success in the Indian Ocean by Dr. Charles Meldrum at the Observatory in Mauritius, by Piddington in Calcutta for storms in many locations, and for storms closer to Hong Kong at the the Zikawei Observatory at Shanghai by Dechevrens, who, as we have noted, wrote an influential pamphlet on a storm there in 1879. In 1893 Doberck canvassed various navies and shipping agencies for assistance in accessing their logs. The navies were not very cooperative, the commander-inchief in China informing him that there were no logs in Hong Kong since they were forwarded to the admiralty monthly and that he could not offer him any help in that direction, but the shipping companies were more helpful.92 As a result Anna had her hands full in collecting the material. Such data played a big role in the maps of typhoon passages generated at the Observatory over the years.93 But Anna also played a more central role in the Observatory’s operations, helping with forecasting and mapping out the trajectories of typhoons. In his report for 1911 the director credits Anna with mapping out the typhoon tracks for that year. Like everyone else in the Observatory Anna lived very much in her brother’s shadow, but her efforts were occasionally acknowledged. She acted as first assistant on various occasions: when her brother was on leave for six months in 1902, for all of 1903, and for most of 1904 when the first assistant, F. G. Figg, himself was on leave. But she had to fight for it. In 1902, when not automatically elevated on Figg taking over as acting director, she wrote: ‘I feel deeply the slight put upon me by what, to the best of my belief, is a departure from the usual practice in other departments’.94 However she seems not to have been considered when a replacement for Figg, on his promotion to director in


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1907, was being considered. Her brother, atypically, appears to have made no representations for her in the matter before his departure, possibly because he did not wish to dilute the efforts he was making to have Figg (who was nominally junior to the senior assistant J. I. Plummer) succeed to his position, something he probably wished as a show of gratitude for the devotion with which his assistant had served him over so many years — Figg had been with him at the Observatory from day one — and a course of events he could not at all take for granted. Any such suggestion in favour of his sister would also probably have been seen as nepotism, but it should be borne in mind that Anna was more than merely his sister. Unlike Figg and Plummer, who both as school-leavers had worked their way up from the very bottom rung in an observatory ladder, Anna had, whatever the status of her ‘B.A. degree’, a tertiary education and fifteen years’ experience in the Observatory, including acting as first assistant on some occasions. As a junior member in the department it is to be expected that little trace of her activities are to be found in the extant records. She spent the month of March 1897 in Japan on sick leave. Locally, we know that she was a member of the Ladies’ Recreation Club in 1904 and 1905. There is, however, one small, and puzzling series of episodes that relate to her communications with Governor Nathan, messages that are to be found in his personal, as distinct from his official, papers. In January 1906 we find a short personal letter from her at 7, East Rd. (Kowloon) to Sir Matthew, thanking him for ‘taking an interest in my case’, and saying that she was trying to let her house, as ‘it will be impossible for me to go away with that on my hands’. Her leave officially noted in the Blue Book for that year in fact only totalled twelve days. The more puzzling part of the letter is her continuation: ‘I will, as soon as that matter is arranged, see if I can summon up enough courage to take the necessary steps’.95 We have no further correspondence relative to the matter and can only surmise on the context. But we do have one, even more puzzling, letter from their later correspondence. In April of the following year she wrote to ‘His Excellency the Governor’, in French, saying how she had seen of his pending departure in the papers. It is helpful to quote (in translation) the remainder of the letter in full: I would like you to be able to forget us without ill feeling, with your accustomed generosity. It has greatly troubled me that I have offended you in some way though I do not know how. Please forgive me any impression, any lack of courtesy, any je ne sais quoi, and accept the assurance of my respectful and cordial sentiments as well as my best wishes for your health.


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To this Nathan replied on the very same day, in English: ‘I have read your letter today with some surprise. I assure you that in no matter have you given me any offence and I regret that you should be under the impression that you had done so. I thank you cordially for your kind wishes for my good health’.96 The use of French by Anna for her letter is most plausibly a decoy strategy to confound prying eyes, on a matter she seemed to think of as sensitive. But what was the original source of her anxiety? Anna’s main concerns at the time were most likely financial; her annual salary was just $1200, with no provision for housing. As we have seen, her brother had approached an earlier governor for an improvement in her conditions, but without success. Any later such approaches, however, would likewise be expected to go through official channels; it seems unlikely that she would have broached such mercenary matters with His Excellency at a personal level — the Colonial Office in London anyway was the final arbiter in such matters — and it was to be another five years before she got an allowance. The great lacunae in the correspondence almost surely guarantee that we will not arrive at a convincing explanation of the circumstantial events. Like most of the European community in Hong Kong, her brother William, with his wife, were among the invitees to the new governor’s ball at Government House in October 1904 to celebrate the King’s birthday. Anna Doberck does not accompany them on the published list of those attending, but one Miss Woberck occurs near the end of the column.97 Nathan was, and remained, a bachelor, but one writer has noted how he was a confidant of many women in Hong Kong society at the time, relationships not without misunderstandings, but at the same time that he may have been playing them off against each other.98 An admirer wrote of a ‘handsome man ... possessed of a muted but compelling charm’,99 while another historian has written of how he lacked intimate male friends, but had a wide circle of talented female acquaintances, who were kept at a distance100 — or maybe not; ‘Anna & the Governor …’ but we will forfeit all possibilities of movie rights and move on. Absent Dr. Doberck, little drama attaches to the Hong Kong Observatory in the remaining five years of our study, but in a final chapter we will survey its new role in Asian meteorology, and summarize its history to that time.


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8 A New Age The friction that used to exist between Hongkong and the neighbouring Observatories can cease now … the present Observatory staff will [not] sacrifice the public interest to a stupid feud that has now become traditional.1

Figg Takes the Helm Whatever the circumstances under which Doberck departed, he did attempt to have his legacy secured in the Observatory by lobbying strongly for Figg to be appointed as his successor. With Plummer the nominally senior staff in situ, but to some extent not persona grata, it was always on the cards that someone would be brought in from outside in order to resolve the dichotomy. On 30 January 1907 Doberck submitted a memorandum to the government advising them of the qualifications required in his successor and strongly endorsed Figg for the position. He wrote: ‘As the appointment will eventually be made by the Secretary of State with the assistance of the Astronomer Royal, should Mr. Figg be recommended for the post his claims on this particular point [Figg’s expertise in typhoon meteorology] will need to be strongly insisted upon by his Excellency the Governor, as there is a chance that the Scientific Authorities at home will select a candidate who is engaged in a different line of research’.2 In forwarding the qualifications for a new director to London, Governor Nathan favoured the director’s suggestion, pointing out that Plummer was already sixtytwo years of age, less than three years from the compulsory retirement age.3 The Colonial Office, without, apparently, bothering to consult the astronomer royal, agreed to appoint Figg4 — a just reward for a quarter century of diligent and loyal service. The only known photograph of him is shown in Fig. 20. Although he had negligible experience in meteorology when he first set out for Hong Kong, Figg eventually became resident forecaster in the Observatory.


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Doberck cites him as such in an article he wrote on weather forecasting in Hong Kong in Monthly Weather Review in 1899, and quotes his opinions on several topics.5 Of all the personalities involved in the early days of the Hong Kong Observatory, none comes out of it with greater credit than Figg. There was thus essential continuity in the operations of the Observatory following Doberck’s departure. Doberck made no effort to have his sister take over Figg’s position as first assistant in the event of his promotion. It was not that Anna lacked the necessary qualifications. She had been fifteen years in the Observatory, and had acted as first assistant for all of two years in 1903/05. But the possible perception of nepotism, not to mention the eyebrows that would be raised by having a female officer in the department (as well as the undivided attention necessary in his promotion of Figg as his successor, already noted), probably dissuaded him from espousing her case. Figg’s replacement as first assistant was one C. W. Jeffries from the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, who took up appointment in October 1907.

Fig. 20. Frederic George Figg. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Observatory of the HKSAR.


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A New Era of Harmony and Cooperation Under its new director the Observatory as a government department ‘came in from the cold’, and a somewhat warmer relationship was established with the community — evidenced early by the presence of Figg, and Plummer, at a levee held at the Government House by the new governor Sir Frederick Lugard, in August 1907. The newly arrived governor was keen to establish for himself the situation at the Observatory after Doberck’s departure, and quickly arranged to meet the new director. Speaking to the Estimates for 1908 in the Legislative Council, he said: I can assure you … that full advantage has been and is now being taken of the results derived from other observatories, especially Sicawei and Manila. Whatever difference of opinion may have occurred on certain controversial points, the fact remains that the observatories are in daily communication with our own, that telegraphic communication has never been interrupted, and that the news which has thus been made available has been fully utilized and has been embodied in the warnings given by our Observatory.

This would seem to show a certain naivety on Lugard’s part, for the situation depicted would never have been contradicted by Observatory staff in the past, when the ‘advantage’ would simply have been apprised as zero. Mr. Figg assured him that he lacked nothing in the way of instruments and that relations with other observatories in the region were most cordial. Nevertheless, things were changing. In order to ensure these points, the governor informed the Legislative Council, he had instructed the director to visit the Manila and Shanghai Observatories to see their instruments and get in close contact with the directors.6 The director complied, in part, with these instructions. In his report for 1909 he records his visit to Manila (16–23 February 1909) ‘at the request of the Government’, but no mention of a visit to Shanghai is to be found. He formed a very favourable impression of the operation at Manila and acknowledged the great courtesy he received from Fr. Algué. Operations at Manila dwarfed those of the Hong Kong Observatory, having forty outstations connected with headquarters.7 The situation with Zikawei was not as simple. People in Shanghai did not take kindly to the aspersions Figg cast on them in his evidence to the committee investigating the 1906 tornado — saying, for instance that ‘it would be unwise to place confidence in remarks issued by Sicawei even if we received them’. Both the Shanghai Mercury and the Shanghai Times deplored this characterization of the Zikawei Observatory before the commission of enquiry. The latter in an editorial in March 1907 declared:


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Early China Coast Meteorology Never was a meaner excuse put forward for failure to perform a duty than Mr. Figgs [sic], the assistant director of the Hongkong Observatory, advances on behalf of that establishment. To endeavour to turn wellmerited censure from the Observatory with which he is connected by shifting, or endeavouring to shift, the blame on to another, but in no respect a rival institution, is a subterfuge which will enhance neither the reputation of the Hongkong Observatory nor of Mr. Figgs nor of Dr. Doberck, nor any other person or establishment implicated in the most discreditable manœuvre … . The fame of the great establishment which the Jesuit Fathers conduct here is too firmly established, and the magnitude of the noble and self-denying service which they render too widely appreciated for the machinations of jealousy, or conscious and resentful inferiority to injure them in the esteem of the public.8

Zikawei also took offence at the conclusions of the astronomer royal, who emphatically stated that they had not forewarned Hong Kong of that particular storm. In this the Jesuits were being too insistent. As we have seen in the last chapter, the only depression they could claim as the source of the storm, they themselves admitted was filling up on 17 September. Even the editor of the China Mail felt obliged to defend the astronomer royal and give ‘fair play’ to the Observatory.9 In view of this it is perhaps understandable why Figg might have anticipated a cool reception in Shanghai and was not too keen on visiting there, and the governor seems not to have pressed the matter. The South China Morning Post on Saturday 8 May 1909 carried a report of Fr. Froc’s arrival in the Colony, together with a brief but glowing portrait of the priest and saying that he would be leaving in three days’ time. Apparently it was Monday before Governor Lugard noticed this, whereon he directed that Figg should see the Zikawei meteorologist. Replying the next day, Figg said that Froc had not visited the Observatory and that he was unaware of his presence, and that when he received the governor’s minute ‘the French Mail was then leaving the harbour’ — conveniently. The warmth with which the Zikawei Observatory was lauded in the Shanghai papers, as it was regularly also lauded in the Hong Kong papers, stands in sharp contrast to how the Hong Kong Observatory was ever treated in the local media. Figg’s successor, as director designate, did visit Zikawei in November 1911, but it was not until 1913, after Figg’s departure, that Fr. Froc visited Hong Kong again and was received at the Observatory.10 He visited once more the following year and thereafter very regular communication existed between the two institutions. The new director did pursue efforts to improve the issuing of storm warnings, and to increase the flow of information into the Observatory. In July 1907 Figg introduced a new ‘Urgent Signal’ for when the winds could increase to full typhoon force at any moment, consisting of three explosive bombs at intervals of ten seconds, to be accompanied by appropriate light signals at


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night.11 The press was already better disposed to the institution. In July 1907 the China Mail hoped that ‘the friction that used to exist between Hongkong and the neighbouring Observatories can cease now …’ and that ‘the present Observatory staff will [not] sacrifice the public interest to a stupid feud that has now become traditional’.12 Part of the goodwill could be attributed to the timely warning of a storm on 27–28 July 1908. Like the storm of two years earlier, it was of relatively small extent, but blew even stronger, wrecking the anemometers at the Observatory and at the Peak station, essentially destroying the latter installation. The loss of life this time, however, was much less; the greatest tragedy was the loss of the river steamer Ying King on its way from Canton with its captain and 423 aboard. In an effort to improve the quality of incoming data, Governor Lugard made efforts to have the Chinese and Philippine authorities set up wireless signal stations on the Pratas Reef and on the island of Santo Domingo de Basco in the Batanes islands in the Balingtang Channel respectively. Promises to this effect were made, but it was to be some time before the valuable information arrived from these two pivotal stations. By October 1909, Mr. Hewett in the Legislative Council could remark that it was ‘time we should express our appreciation of the way the Observatory has been conducted. The more so as we are perfectly well aware that the Director is handicapped by not being fully connected with certain quarters …’.13 By 1910 the annual budget for the Observatory had crept up to $22,000, but it was still the smallest department in the government; the Audit Department got $28,300 and the Botanical and Forestry Department got $50,500 in that year.14 Its performance was also increasingly appreciated. In May 1910 the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph would wonder at the amount of effort represented in the Observatory’s annual report and praise ‘the painstaking toil and learned skill of Mr. Figg and Mr. Plummer and their assistants in the performance of their difficult and responsible duties’.15 Figg proposed to retire in February 1912, or at any earlier date at which his services could be spared.16 When it came to choosing his successor, the Colonial Office reckoned the only possible source of suitable candidates was the Mauritius Observatory, and selection of someone there was assisted by recommendations of a recent commission of enquiry into that institution which recommended a staff cutback there.17 The job was finally offered to its director, Thomas Folkes Claxton. Claxton had been first assistant at Mauritius from December 1895 and the following year succeeded Meldrum as director on the latter’s retirement. It was at this time recognized that as a centre for meteorological activity, Hong Kong was much more important than Mauritius. Claxton was an experienced meteorologist, who could take up the appointment on short notice and he arrived in Hong Kong at the end of May 1911. In a letter of advice from the astronomer royal, Frank Watson Dyson, it was pointed out to


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him that the principal work at the Observatory must be meteorological but that magnetic and seismographic observations were a natural development. He did not entirely rule out astronomy, although all he could suggest was the mounting of a good camera on the Lee Equatorial with which he could do some interesting work on comets, etc., at small cost.18 At the insistence of the government, Claxton visited the observatories at Tokyo, Zikawei and Manila in October and November 1911 in order that he might become in touch with the directors, and acquire an insight into the methods adopted in those institutions.19 In their year of overlap, Claxton and Figg appear to have clashed over one matter, the replacement of a chief assistant after Plummer’s retirement. In November 1911 Claxton, as director designate, wrote, through his boss the director, to the government suggesting that the post be advertised, including the proviso that candidates should be British subjects20 — was this a lesson learned the hard way? Figg had already favoured the promotion of the first assistant, C. W. Jeffries, and when Claxton was asked the reasons for his objections he failed to specify any concrete grounds, only saying in a memorandum to the colonial secretary, ‘The Director of an Observatory requires as his Chief Assistant a gentleman who would be a real colleague, and able to take his place when necessary’.21 He may have had someone else in mind for the post. Although there was some sympathy in London for the opinion that Jeffries was not suitable to take his place, and one official noted that Claxton was placed in an awkward position, the Colonial Office eventually sided with Figg and the governor, and Jeffries was promoted. The arrangement seems to have worked out satisfactorily; Jeffries would eventually succeed Claxton as director twenty years later. The departure of Figg marks a natural end to the first phase in the Hong Kong Observatory — it became the Royal Hong Kong Observatory on 12 July 1912. The Observatory’s annual reports on meteorological and magnetic observations ended with the issue for 1912 (from 1904 it was simply titled Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year …) and a less purely formal scientific attitude was adopted from then on, more in keeping with the community’s aspirations for the institution.

1912: New Beginnings Claxton took over at a time of major changes in the discipline of meteorology and in the facilities available for its prosecution. Some of the importance meteorology lost with the demise of sail was about to be regained in the new era of aviation. It was also the time when telegraphy by submarine cables was at its greatest stage of development. The distant stations of Yap and Guam, the putative locations of origin for many typhoons, were linked to Shanghai and Manila respectively in


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1903. In Fig. 21 we show the connections in the China Sea and North Pacific around this time. At the same time communications were entering a new age with the advent of wireless telegraphy and 1912 in the Empire was a pivotal year in these matters, which would revolutionize the dissemination of meteorological data, not only in the speed and reliability of arrival of the information, but also because it was much less sensitive to the actual prevailing conditions on the ground, and so more reliable. When land lines were most likely to be interrupted was just when the importance of the signal was greatest — this was especially so for inter-station transmissions in the Philippines. Wireless also soon became competitive with cable telegraphy. Claxton, in his first six months as director, rapidly found the governor’s ear for funds for new equipment for the Observatory, setting it on a path of constructive contribution to the needs of the Colony, but the pioneering struggles of his predecessors could hardly have escaped him as he strode the halls of the elegant building on Mt. Elgin.

Fig. 21. Telegraph lines and cables linking Far East ports around 1912. After Ahvenainen (1981), courtesy of Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.


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But what legacy did the new director inherit? It is not easy to evaluate Doberck’s contribution to meteorology. On the one hand he was a meticulous scientist, who executed his projects with uncompromising rigour. On the other hand his position was not that of a laboratory scientist, and the tact and compromise that that position required were totally foreign to him — and he was somewhat vainglorious. Besides this is the realization that he never embraced the subject of meteorology as he did astronomy. He brought to it the scientific rigour that characterized his work generally, but treated it in a purely phenomenological and utilitarian way. The historian of nineteenth-century meteorology Kutzbach, writing of the 1880s and 1890s, says: ‘In a broader sense since cyclone research was at the center of meteorological activity during this period, the emergence of the thermal theory of cyclones portrays the spirit and the scope of Nineteenth Century meteorological thought at large’.22 It was not an activity in which Doberck, unlike his contemporary, Dechevrens at Zikawei, involved himself. Although his library contained most of the up-to-date volumes on meteorology, he made no use of them in his Law of Storms, which was written, as we have noted, without reference to anyone else’s work. That he undermined collaborative efforts in the Far East to develop a global system of storm warnings is clear. This applies both to the mechanics of deriving storm warnings and the codes to be used in their propagation. Whatever his reservations about the abilities of the Jesuit meteorologists in Manila and Shanghai, which seem to have been shared by no others, his efforts to suppress their messages, and to restrict the flow of data between Japan and Taiwan and Manila, seem inexcusable. Doberck never returned to his early Markree study of a possible role for sunspots in determining the weather, but he did report some Rainband Spectroscope data. An approach to forecasting at the time that did not live up to the expectations of its promoters was use of the so-called ‘Rainband Spectrosocope’. The spectrum of sunlight is viewed using a small pocket direct vision spectroscope. If there is significant intervening water vapour it will give rise to absorption bands on the long wavelength side of the sodium D-lines. The intensity of these bands is to be estimated on a scale of 0 to 5.23 It was hoped that this would give another method of forecasting rain, to be expected when the ‘rain-bands’ were strong, especially if so towards the zenith. The device was strongly promoted by Charles Piazzi Smyth, the astronomer royal for Scotland, and in 1882 was the subject of major controversy in meteorological circles, but it never became widely adopted. In his annual report for 1889, Doberck gives a table for nine months showing the rainband reading (0–5), acquired by an ‘amateur’ daily at 10:00 a.m., and the rainfall in the following twenty-four hours. He comments that the intensities 0 and 1 forecast absence of rain very accurately and that intensities 4 and 5 forecast as a rule very wet


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weather — the latter indication moreover being frequently followed by great thunderstorms. Although his annual reports for the years 1890 to 1897 all tabulate rainband readings for the year, he never again discusses them. How well did the typhoon warning system at the Observatory work? Apart from the year of minimalist signals, 1897–98, his signal code for mariners seems to have been satisfactory, especially with the distinction made between storms more or less than three hundred miles distant. The problems were with its communication. He can hardly be blamed for the oft-occurring confusion about these signals among locals, ignorant of their significance. The Hong Kong signals were adopted at Canton in 1908. Hong Kong also displayed the China Coast (Zikawei) signals, so by 1912 the warning system for mariners had reached the stage that was hoped for on the setting up of the Observatory. Such warning for mariners also became relatively less important with the advent of radio telegraphy, when captains at any location could map out their course of action. What did not decrease in importance was successful warning of storms approaching the territory, and the fiasco of 1906 was not to be repeated later. How successful were the signals for local residents, as evidenced by successful and necessary firing of the gun? Despite the many complaints on this subject over the years, in his final annual report, for 1906, Doberck claimed for the twenty-three years from 1884 to 1906 there were forty successes in firing or not firing the gun out of forty-eight cases where such a decision had to be made (excluding gales from the north-east monsoon in the months November to February, for which firing the typhoon gun was not contemplated), a success rate of 83%.24 Three of those failures were failure of gales to materialize. This success rate, he pointed out, was higher than the rate at which storms in Great Britain were forecast. If one relaxed the criterion on warning to include all signals, not just the typhoon gun, he claimed that the only storm that had not been foretold during his stewardship was the one on 18 September of that year. Doberck’s almost total eclipse from the annals of meteorology is probably fair comment on a career that failed to live up to the potential, both circumstantial and personal, that attended his appointment as founding director. But that does not mean that his career was at an end when he retired from Hong Kong. Although outside our terms of reference, it would be crass to ignore the remaining thirty years of his career, and after tidying up a few loose ends we will return to them in a brief final section.


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The Greater Picture There is more to an enquiry into the state of meteorology on the China Coast in 1912 than a survey of Doberck’s career and it is worthwhile here to look a bit more closely at the greater picture. This embraces not only meteorology, but the position of science generally in the context of Empire. The questions that can be asked pertain to two aspects of the subject in hand: How are the events we relate connected to the larger theme of the introduction of Western science into colonial societies? And, secondly, what political and social factors played a role in bringing about the situation in meteorology we find on the China Coast by 1912? The former question has attracted much attention in recent times, namely how did science impact on the subject societies into which it was introduced, and how in turn was the Western approach to science influenced by this interaction? These questions can arouse great controversy in the case of fields like agriculture, or medical science, but a blanket categorization of the attitude of all the colonial powers is not possible. The Spanish authorities adopted a rather hands-off approach, while the Dutch, at least in the case of the Batavia observatory, did take into account the prestige attached to the institution and provided support for pure science, and promoted relevant education.25 But as for France and Great Britain, in the case of meteorology, arguments other than for enhancing the power, secular or religious, of the ruling power are not easy to sustain. Like astronomy, meteorology was happy to assimilate compatible knowledge acquired by another culture, yet there would be no compromise with the prosecuted paradigm. But the willingness to sponsor scientific activity for its own sake was not much in evidence. Lacking a demand from the Chambers of Commerce or shipping interests, such developments as did occur simply would not have happened at the time. Except for a small contribution for establishing the tide tables, there was no willingness on the part of London to support the efforts, even though the navy must have been a major beneficiary of the project. In no cases in our study were the concerns with meteorology related to agriculture, like those with famine in India which were so important in stimulating the development of meteorology on the sub-continent. Any demand from scientific authorities ‘at home’ could easily have been provided for with much less effort. These demands, as detailed by the Royal Society, simply called for the uninterrupted recording of data. It would presumably be analyzed by ‘home’ scientists at a future date. The Colonial Office, the interface with institutions in the colonies, did no more than reflect these considerations, although an occasional shaft of empathy with the director on a personal level can be detected in the dispatches. In the early days, the journal Nature gave good and sympathetic coverage to the new observatory, but it was not a journal


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that was widely read by the Observatory’s critics in Hong Kong, and their purely mercenary philosophy dictated events. This is not to say that, incidental to imperial schemes, others could not benefit. The issue of how locals, and the local boat population, at Hong Kong reacted to messages from the Observatory in its earliest years is not so easy to establish. There were sometimes sarcastic castigations in the English-language press of the stubbornness and ignorance of the locals when faced with storm signals. However, increasingly the complaints were of an over-enthusiasm on the part of boat dwellers to take the signals as an excuse to seek shelter when the circumstances did not warrant it, resulting in a curtailment of commercial activity in the harbour. Part of this eagerness to seek early safety was, no doubt, due the very limited availability of locations of refuge. It was not until 1903, almost twenty years after the introduction of storm signals, that the government took up the issue of providing comprehensive typhoon shelters, and it would be another thirteen years before the proposals became a reality. Some advances in pure science were also incidental to operations. Manila and Zikawei also received support from maritime interests, uninterested in science apart from its practical aspects, but the nature of the Jesuit commitment to science meant that this would always be a central component in their work. Doberck was also so inclined and some advances were made in understanding the mechanisms at operation in a typhoon, plus, thanks to his dogged perseverance, some advances also in astronomy. The existence of the Observatory could have been seen as a seed for the improvement of scientific or technical education in the Colony, but no effort in this direction was made. It was always very much an ‘ivory tower’. The only public lecture arising from it appears to have been Plummer’s talk on typhoons in 1910 — probably to the displeasure of the director. Such technical staff as resigned from the Observatory almost always seem to have done so in order to escape from it, and no diffusion of scientific expertise into the community is apparent. In short, no sophisticated sociological theories seem necessary to locate Hong Kong Observatory, or indeed the other observatories in the region (excluding Japan), in the timeframe of our study. Purely utilitarian considerations in the prosecution of the imperial project can account for most events. We turn now to the question of the ‘internal’ factors which were of importance in these events. Of the four major interests for the Observatory visualized at its foundation, time-keeping, geomagnetic monitoring, tidal measurements and meteorology, only with regard to the latter can developments be seen as unsatisfactory. But this unsatisfactory situation was an indicator of a more general unsatisfactory position of science in the colonial administration of the day. Several factors are relevant to the sluggish development of meteorology, and science generally, in Hong Kong, especially when compared with other


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colonies. Of particular relevance in such a comparison are tropical locations like Indonesia and the British colonies of India and Mauritius. The latter, with a land area less than twice that of Hong Kong (including the New Territories), and almost at the same distance from the equator (20°S), is of particular relevance. It was a small colony lacking an agricultural base and a familiarity with the ravages of famine, so there was not the urgency to the study of meteorology that propelled it in India, yet its observatory was a model for such an institution. A significant contributing factor to lethargy in Hong Kong was the weakness there of civil society, reflected in the near absence of associations or groupings with related interests. The establishment of meteorological institutions elsewhere was often encouraged by unofficial bodies or associations, and stimulated by amateur observers. In the United Kingdom a body like the British Association for the Advancement of Science played such a role, while in India societies like the Bombay Geographical Society and the influential Asiatic Society of Bengal were important, and in Mauritius a meteorological society had existed from 1851. Such bodies could also serve to provide community support for functioning observatories. Hong Kong had no such associations, the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society operated in the Colony from 1847, but folded in 1859, not to be revived for another hundred years. The only reference to meteorology in its Transactions was a vote of thanks at a Council meeting in 1852 to Lieutenant Maury for presenting them with a copy of his Charts of Currents.26 The relative newness of the Colony, the small number of officials employed and the transitory nature of their stay, and similarly of the other expatriates, contributed to the lack. The low level of modern education, especially containing a technical element, a sine qua non for a scientific-based career, was also a factor in Hong Kong, at least in the failure to inform valid criticism of the efforts made. Well-to-do Chinese parents often sent their children back to the mainland for a traditional education. The Government Central School had only been in existence from 1862, whereas the Royal College at Mauritius had existed in some form or other from 1799. Serious efforts were made to train clerical personnel, but apart from some very elementary training in carpentry, shoemaking and printing by some Catholic missionaries, nothing in the way of technical education was attempted until, under the engineering-qualified Governor Nathan, the Technical Institute was set up in 1907. Blanford, the head of the Indian Meteorological Service at Calcutta, could employ locals in a scientific capacity from 1884. Like the case of education, the low level of medical activity in the Colony, again a consequence of the bulk of the Chinese being content with their traditional practices, was a handicap to the growth of learned associations. Elsewhere, medically educated men were a fertile source of amateur scientists, and often likely to take the initiative in promoting scientific activity. An interest in meteorology could come


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from the fact that climatic factors as a vector in the transmission of diseases like malaria and cholera were still a rival to newly developing germ theory. There were some such people in Hong Kong, notably among the members of the short-lived Royal Asiatic Society branch, but not enough to make up the critical mass necessary to foster sustained activity. In prosecuting projects with a scientific component there was also the lack of government administrators with any scientific background. Governor Pope Hennessy, who, as we have seen, was sensitive to scientific ideas, did embrace the idea of an observatory from the moment it was brought to his notice — although the slowness of subsequent developments were a result of politicking in which he himself was not innocent. Scientific credentials among other colonial servants at the time were in very short supply. This lack was made up for, to some extent, by the posting of military engineers. The case of Major Palmer exemplifies Burton’s opinion, speaking of another officer, ‘one can say that he “was one of that invaluable breed of Royal Engineers officers who served to cover for the lack of science-trained administrators throughout the British Empire in the 19th century”’.27 In 1873 Palmer had spent about ten months at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for familiarization work prior to acting as chief astronomer for an expedition sent to New Zealand the following year to observe the transit of Venus. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in the same year. Although he believed that the observations of the phenomena he made on 9 December were of no value because of heavy cloud cover, when, three years later, all the global measurements had been analyzed his results were seen to be highly reliable and were commended by the astronomer royal, Sir George Airy — no doubt a reflection on his professionalism as an observer. He was very keen to play a similar role in a second transit, eight years later in 1882, and canvassed Airy in the matter, on several occasions volunteering his services. By the time the event came around, however, Airy had retired from his position and a suitable opportunity to engage Palmer on an observing team did not present itself. Always keen to write for popular publications — in later years when based in Japan he would contribute a regular column to the Times of London — he published an article, ‘The Great Comet of 1882’, in a local paper, the Daily Press, on 20 November 1882; the article was reprinted in the Japan Mail of 2 December of that year. He also engaged in a correspondence on the determination of longitude in the other local paper, the China Mail, 9–14 March 1882. Apart from his articles in the local press, in his short stay he made the first accurate measurement of the latitude of the territory and, most significantly, drafted a design for an observatory at Hong Kong. But Palmer left before the Observatory was built and another official with a scientific background did not appear on the scene until the arrival of Governor Nathan in 1904.


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Not only was there a lack of familiarity with scientific ways of thinking, there often was a latent animosity to such ways. The hostility of the authorities to research for its own sake is perhaps understandable, and the refusal by William Marsh, the officer administering the territory, to subsidize Doberck’s research in astronomy no doubt had the support of the highly mercenary commercial community. But the same officer’s refusal to provide funds for the publication of his Law of Storms in 1886 illustrates an extremely narrow view of the role of the Observatory, and was surely a factor in the director’s growing intolerance of officialdom. The Observatory was not the only body to suffer on this account; the superintendent of the Botany and Afforestation Department, Charles Ford, had cause to complain of the indifference of the government to research projects he proposed and a reluctance to fund them28 — an adversary he shared with Doberck was the surveyor general John M. Price. As a result he was unable to carry out any research that was not related to day-to-day activities of his department. Ford, however, must be regarded as more successful in his position. Although he could not pursue the purely scientific aspects of botany, he did valuable work on conservation, and afforestation on the hillsides. In 1893 his department had an annual budget of $21,100, against $13,250 for the Observatory (his salary of $2910 compared with Dr. Doberck’s $3000). In maintaining a viable department he was aided, no doubt, by the favourable public visibility of his work, including annual flower shows and a brass band playing in his Botanic Gardens. Besides, his efforts could not directly touch the livelihood of citizens, or easily fall into their disfavour. Added to this, his non-confrontational personality, and not inserting contentious matter into his annual reports, must have been a help. And in other respects, if the strictly practical applications were addressed, the government could be quite supportive of the scientific approach. This was the case with sanitation in the colony, and with the efforts to confront the plague in the mid-1890s. The failure of the Observatory to interface with the local community, in other than in its purely professional capacity, will be clear from what has gone before, but a closer look at the way locals were treated is of relevance here. In these matters we have, of course, to keep in mind Doberck’s prickly personality and martinet manner, which is likely to have affected locals no less than expatriates. Local staff comprised one scientific post, second assistant, and various others, clerks etc., who can be referred to as technical staff. Assessing the relations in the Observatory in the early years is made more difficult by the short time that most local staff spent in employment. By the early 1890s, however, some staff stability was attained. Apart from the second assistant, there were first and second clerks and two telegraphists, with the two clerks retitled in 1896 as first and second computers, in common with practice at observatories


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elsewhere. The position of assistant in an observatory at the time corresponded to an officer rank, and it was implied in Palmer’s proposal that a local candidate could aspire to such a position. And all second assistants were local employees. However, in 1901 a decision was taken to label the second assistant as head computer. On the face of it this would seem to indicate a downgrading of the post (although there was no change in the salary attached) to an unambiguously technical one, and can be read as a ploy to deny any possibility of a local being eventually promoted to first assistant. It coincided with the departure of Ho Toshang, who had occupied the second assistant position for over eleven years, but it is not clear whether his departure was taken as an opportunity to make the change, or was in turn triggered by the change. Ho had acted for Anna during her absence and is spoken of in annual reports as one of the responsible persons in the Observatory, but no further mention of him after his departure is to be found. From 1907 even more space was placed between the technical and scientific staff when the head computer position was designated as fourth grade computer29 and the remaining computers and telegraphists were labelled as fifth grade computers — one wonders what it would have taken to make the first grade. It is worthy of note that, up to the end of the period we have surveyed, there is no obviously female name among the technical staff of the Observatory. This is to be contrasted with the frequent employment of females in such junior positions in other laboratories in Europe and North America, as we have noted earlier, and indeed, bears comparison with the Batavia Observatory in the Dutch East Indies where, by 1919, ten out of twelve technical staff were female. It is clear that it was not only the reluctance of the Hong Kong government to succour such a programme that stymied the advancement of the physical sciences in the colony. Could meteorology, under the circumstances prevailing, have reached an earlier maturity in Hong Kong? Figg and Plummer were strictly colonial servants from whom a vision of the larger picture might not be expected. Doberck, on the other hand, might indeed have been able to cultivate a centre for Asian meteorology, even for science and science education, at Hong Kong. There is no doubt he did not devote his talents in this direction, but rather tried to maintain his regional standing in the field to buttress his fame, such as it was, and to permit him unnoticed activity in astronomy. Meteorology was not a subject, unlike medicine, in which a man could cut out a career in the colonies and return home to further fame. Certainly Doberck seems to have made no application for other posts. So it is that we must address the role of Doberck’s personal approach. Because there is no doubt that, whatever his professionalism, his conduct as director handicapped the development of meteorology in the region. If he had adopted a less adversarial stance vis-à-vis the authorities in Hong Kong, and conformed


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more to civil service norms, he might have been more successful in obtaining their support. But in these matters it is easy for us to understand his attitude. Mindful of the liberal regime he had lived under at Markree, he chaffed at the school-boyish disciple to which he was subject, and, rightly, saw his superiors as ignorant of, and unappreciative of, the rigorous methodical approach necessary for a truly scientific study of the subjects. What is not so easily understood is his uncompromising hostility towards the Jesuit observatories. The priests were not ignorant, nor were they arrogant, and they seem to have been prepared to work with him on equal terms in advancing meteorological studies in the region. Mutual calibration of apparatus could have been relatively easily carried out, not that the French priests at Zikawei would have felt the need, but their more isolated confreres in Manila might have benefited, and it would certainly have added to confidence all round. His negative opinion of the Jesuits was not confined to their operations at the Manila and Zikawei observatories alone, as we have seen when he claimed that the objective of their order was to undermine non–Roman Catholic scientific institutions and as a consequence had been expelled from most countries.30 Doberck had no children, so no direct links with his times or personal memorabilia are available, and we can only surmise on the reasons behind his behaviour. I think we can be sure that the conflict was not caused, as is so often the case among professional rivals, by conflicting views of their science. He basically ignored all publications from his neighbouring observatories. Did he develop anti-clerical attitudes from falling foul of the priests while at Collooney? Such would appear unlikely on strictly religious grounds, as what little evidence there is suggests he had no interest in religion. Could some issue have arisen with reference to his relations, which later came to light, with his housekeeper, Mrs. deSalles? Is there here an explanation for why he left a comfortable living at Markree? We do not know. But at least up to 1878 when the local historian, Monsignor O’Rorke, wrote so warmly of him and his sister — ‘a brother and sister that remind one forcibly, by their common love of science and their mutual affection, of William and Caroline Herschel’31 — it would seem that no such clash with the clergy had occurred. Further complimentary remarks on Dr. Doberck by the same author in a later book would seem to further diminish the plausibility of such an interpretation.32 With his Danish origins and antipathy to the Jesuits, one could expect some Masonic sympathies. One suggestion of Masonic association is the help he received from Robert Fraser Smith, the editor of the Hong Kong Telegraph, in publishing the first two editions of his Law of Storms. Fraser Smith was a prominent Mason in Hong Kong at the time, and the Telegraph, while Fraser Smith was editor, tended to be less critical of the Observatory than the two other English-language papers. The strong backing that Governor Blake, who was


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a Mason, gave him in answering the complaints of Fr. Froc at Zikawei is also suggestive of common sympathies, but no evidence that Doberck was a Brother Mason in Hong Kong or elsewhere has come to light. If he had been a Mason it is very likely that some trace of it would remain. He probably did believe that the priests were not as rigorous in their work as he was, but they were fulltime meteorologists, and to claim, as he did, that observations made by casual observers at the telegraph stations and treaty ports were invariably more reliable is not plausible; Zikawei was to go on to become internationally recognized as a first-class observatory. The only explanation for his behaviour that seems plausible is pique, a pique at being denied a top billing in meteorology in the Orient — and especially at the failure of Robert Hart to recognize him in such a role — accentuated by a latent anti-clericalism not uncommon among continental scientists at the time. Despite all the vicissitudes, progress was made over the quarter century. By the time of Doberck’s departure it was inconceivable to think in terms of shutting down the Observatory, a possibility seriously canvassed only fifteen years before.

Into the Sunset The careers of all the early Observatory staff, apart from Doberck, were at an end by 1912 — notwithstanding a curious report in the journal Science later in the year of his retirement where Figg’s appointment as director of the Mauritius Observatory was announced. This is a wholly specious report.33 In the Legislative Council in October 1911 Governor Lugard observed that Mr. Figg would ‘retire on pension after 29 years of service in the Colony to which his long experience has been of great value’.34 This was the limit of his encomium after all those years. Even so, it was more than his predecessor Dr. Doberck had received. Figg went on leave on 14 February 1912, with his wife and son (name and age unknown) taking the Tango Maru for London, and his retirement took effect from 14 June (the 1912 Report says resigned!). It is a measure of how rapidly Japan was expanding that on that day all four liners leaving Hong Kong were Japanese, one for Seattle and the other two for Japan. With an annual pension of $1815 (£333), Figg returned to live in England, and in keeping with his ever low profile nothing more is heard of him. He only survived for another three years, and died at the age of sixty on 14 December 1915 at Kingston-upon-Thames, as befitted his retiring nature unlamented by any obituarists, in Hong Kong or elsewhere.


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Plummer went on four months’ leave on 10 January 1911 and from 10 May 1911, had an alimentary allowance of $1080 (₤198) which was converted into a pension on 17 August. In his retirement Plummer lived for some time in Oxshott, only a few miles from his former boss at ‘Kowloon’ in Sutton, Surrey, but it is doubtful, following on the declined invitation of 1891, if there were any more invitations to dinner.35 There, on 6 February 1925, the day after his eightieth birthday, Plummer died, his death certificate recording his profession as ‘Astronomer Royal for Hong Kong (retired)’.36 Unlike Doberck or Figg, he merited obituaries in Hong Kong papers, in fact in all three of the Englishlanguage dailies, the one in the Daily Press particularly emphasizing his theory on the origin of typhoons.37 His was a somewhat frustrated career. Although he had published extensively in astronomy, his abilities were not highly rated by either of the astronomers royal, Airy and Christie, with whom he came in contact. He was largely self-educated in astronomy, without the advantage of a mentor, and although eminently competent with the telescope lacked the seriousness of a Doberck in regard to the subject. Anna’s story, at least from the meteorological point of view, in some respects is the saddest. As we have seen, she was occupied in archiving data from ships’ logs. Indeed when asking for elevation to temporary acting first assistant she pointed out how she had ‘without grudging risked my life over and over again for the sake of gathering information for the construction of typhoon tracks from the logs aboard ships in the harbour’.38 A vast amount of data was accumulated in this way since her arrival in 1893, and her brother realized that it could be put to more use than just mapping typhoon paths. He thought to synthesize it into what he referred to as pilot charts of the China Sea. Pilot charts, on a larger scale, had been pioneered by the American oceanographer Matthew Maury. For the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Maury had used ships’ logs to construct such charts, concentrating largely on the wind parameters — so important in the age of sail. His charts found wide appreciation among sailors. Although the age of sail was fast receding by the end of the century, more general charts for the China Sea would surely have been welcomed by mariners in the region. Anna entered the data into a matrix of one-degree squares covering the China Sea, in latitude from 9º South to 45º North and extending in longitude from Singapore to 180º East, and in his report for 1911 Figg reported that she had entered 418 760 data readings since 1893.39 Apart from a few little visited regions, he reckoned by then there was enough data to begin compiling the pilot charts. Entries were ended for degree squares with more than fifty data entries, and the finding of averages was begun. Anna was on leave for the last six months of 1913, which led to a delay in progress, but in his report for 1914 the director could report completion of the chart for the month of January, and the finalization of isobars for the months of January through July — which, he noted, had revealed some


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interesting effects of islands on the distribution of atmospheric pressure. No mention of the project occurs in the report for 1915, the year in which Anna left, but in each of the following three years ‘no progress’ is reported, because of staff shortages, one assistant or another being on leave, or doing military service. In his report for 1919, the director still records ‘no progress’, all the staff having their hands full with other duties. And that’s the last we hear of the pilot charts. Anna’s almost half a million data entries, her patience and persistence, were all for naught! Anna stayed on until, according to the director’s report for 1915, she resigned on 25 February on account of ill health, and with her departure the post of assistant meteorologist was abolished. It would be sixty years before another female meteorologist would take up a position there, when the Royal Observatory recruited Elaine Koo as its first female scientific officer in 1975. The governor however reported that he had granted Anna two months’ leave on full pay on that day prior to her retirement in April at age fifty-seven,40 and the Blue Book lists her cause of retirement as ‘age’. In the midst of the Great War, she reached Copenhagen, via Siberia, on the 16 April. From 25 April she drew a pension of ₤148 ($810) per annum. We know nothing more about her, apart from the fact that in January 1922 she wrote the Colonial Office from Naples, advising them of mail forwarding arrangements to her ‘ever changing addresses … as I move about’.41 As far back as April 1909 it had already been decided by a committee on retrenchment that the position of assistant meteorologist would not be filled after her departure.

A Final Word on the Founding Director It was to be a long ride into the sunset for the founding director. If Figg and Plummer and his sister faded into obscurity, the same cannot be said of Doberck. He was as much a presence, now among the astronomical community, after retirement as he was before, and apart from one brief exchange he seems never to have had anything further to do with the institution that occupied his waking hours for so many years, or with the subject of meteorology. The director, Claxton, requested the Colonial Office to ask Doberck to supply a new set of hygrometric tables in metric units, which were being adopted in Hong Kong. In response, he published a seventeen-page pamphlet of hygrometric tables for use with rotating dry and wet bulb thermometers in London in 1917.42 After this he does not play any further role in China Coast meteorology. But we cannot ignore his continuing astronomical work and, indeed, his overall contribution to this field, which is where his posthumous fame lies. One imagines he must have had Figg on his ‘Christmas card list’, but, unfortunately, nothing of the papers


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of either gentleman is to be found today. A donation of books and pamphlets by Dr. Doberck, former director of the Hong Kong Observatory, to the Royal Meteorological Society is noted.43 On a pension of ₤360 a year he lived in England for another thirty-four years. He immediately proceeded to set up his own gentleman’s observatory, ‘Kowloon’, at Sutton in Surrey, and equipped it with a six-inch refractor.44 Although it lacked the grandeur of Markree, the Kowloon Observatory was grand enough to keep Doberck occupied for another quarter of a century, and he continued his stellar observations, initially with a little financial support from the Harvard College Observatory. Proposed by his long-time champion, Sir W. H. M. Christie, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 13 November 1908,45 but later he appears to have let his membership lapse as no obituary for him appeared in Monthly Notices. A photograph in later life is shown in Fig. 22.

Fig. 22. A photograph of Doberck in later life. Courtesy of the Hong Kong Observatory of the HKSAR.


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At Sutton Doberck continued with his analysis of double star orbits, made regular observations of different doubles, and from 1919 reported observations of variable stars.46 His wife helped him to some extent, for in the account of his new observatory in Monthly Notices he speaks of her cooperation in measuring double stars, and many years later, in a letter to R. G. Aitken he wrote that: ‘my wife has promised to assist me for one year, and with her help I am able to do twice the amount of work in the same time as when I work alone’.47 But any suggestion that it was more than a domestic duty is contradicted by his elaboration: ‘if you have to appoint a double star observer, you ought to make it a condition that his wife assists him’. His attitude in these matters had not changed from when he wrote in 1891, recommending Anna for appointment as his assistant at the Observatory, the infamous requirement that he have ‘somebody living with me who would be at my beck and call at any hour day or night’. It is with the field of astronomy — rather than meteorology, to which he was obliged to devote so much of his life — that Doberck’s reputation lies. He started off working on cometary orbits, and after his retirement published a couple of further papers on comets. Then between 1918 and 1925 he reported some observations of variable stars. But he should be remembered mainly for his work on double stars. Doberck did not have equipment suited to carrying out exhaustive searches for new (close) double stars, and consequently all of the major northern hemisphere systems that lay within the resolving power of his telescopes had been discovered long before he began investigating them. Nor did he have photographic facilities that would enable him to study spectroscopic binaries, and his tentative excursions in that direction were aborted by his move from Markree to Hong Kong. And so it was that known visual binaries were to occupy him for most of his years. As we have seen during his quarter century in Hong Kong, his observing schedule had to be somewhat furtive, and necessarily conducted at a slow pace, yet this was a time when others were forging ahead with the study of binaries, especially using new spectrographic techniques. But to these studies he could bring his natural affinity for precise quantitative measurement, where biases and measuring uncertainties could be systematically evaluated, and this was an aspect that he emphasized. In his publications he always laid great stress on taking statistical and systematic errors into account when evaluating the published data. From chronologically accumulated data he could then produce reliable orbits for several stellar pairs, and in one of the canonical books on the subject he is referred to as: ‘the veteran computer … who has investigated more double star orbits than any other astronomer …’ (and fourteen of Doberck’s orbits are specifically endorsed).48 For example, in calculating the orbit for Ï—-Ophiuchi, he used data that extended over thirty years,49 and for his investigation of Î¾-Bootis the measurements extended from


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1877 to 1921.50 We should also note that the orbital parameters he derived for the difficult long period double star, Castor AB (Î±-Geminorum), are similar to the currently accepted values.51 Doberck was also the first to draw attention to a tendency for the eccentricity in double star orbits to correlate with their periods, a phenomenon whose interpretation is still a current topic of interest.52 Doberck always held his own in any argument or confrontation, and deferred to none, but one cannot fail to see some hints of frustration in his long career, in part due to his limited access to suitable observing facilities and in part because of his irascible nature. Whatever his legacy in Hong Kong, or in the field of meteorology, his systematic study over the best part of fifty years of the motions in some double star systems was appreciated by the astronomical community. His final report on the subject appeared in 1935, when he was eighty-three years old. He died in London on 5 January 1941. No obituary for him is to be found in the Hong Kong papers of the time. In the depths of war, his reputation, if not fame, from thirty-three years earlier had presumably been forgotten. He did merit, however, at least two obituaries. In the prestigious journal Nature, whose pages he had first graced sixty-four years before, it was recorded that ‘it is as an exceptionally diligent and successful student of visual double stars that he will always be remembered’. The only mention made of his career in Hong Kong was that he had ‘worked in various parts of the world, including Kowloon’.53 Meanwhile a second obituarist says of him that ‘his entire career exemplifies what an enthusiastic amateur can accomplish even when he must content himself with a small telescope located where atmospheric conditions are only moderately favourable’.54 This very much echoed Doberck’s own opinion, as expressed in an essay written almost sixty years earlier where he quotes a remark by Bessel: ‘a practical astronomer ought to be able to do something, even if he has only a cart-wheel and a gun-barrel at his disposal’.55


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Appendix A

A Gazeteer

Amoy — Xiamen (厦門) 24° 27Ń 118° 05É Anping — Taiwan (安平) 24° 45Ń 118° 03É Batavia — Jakarta 6° 08´S 106° 45É Bolinao 16° 15Ń 119° 30É Breaker Point — Shibeishan (石碑山) 22° 56Ń 116° 29É Cape Saint Jacques — Vũng Tàu 10° 20Ń 107° 05É Chapel Island — Dongdingdao (東椗島) 24° 12Ń 118° 14É Chefoo — Yantai (烟台) 37° 33Ń 121° 22É Chinkiang — Zhenjiang (鎮江) 32° 13Ń 119° 25É Chusan — Zhoushan (舟山) 30° 01Ń 122° 06É Fisher Island — Siyu (西嶼) 23° 36Ń 119° 31É Foochow — Fuzhou (福州) 26° 09Ń 119° 17É Gap Rock — Wenweizhou (蚊尾洲) 21° 48Ń 113° 56É Gutzlaff — Dajishan (大戢山) 30° 49Ń 122° 10É Hankow — Hankou (Wuhan) (漢口) 30° 35Ń 114° 17É Hoihow — Haikou (海口) also Kiungchow, q.v.

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Hong Kong — Xianggang (香港) 22° 18´ 13.20” N 114° 10´ 18.75” E Ichang — Yichang (宜昌) 30° 42Ń 111° 16É Kelung (Keelung) — Jilong (基隆) 25° 06Ń 121° 47É Kiukiang — Jiujiang (九江) 29° 45Ń 116° 08É Kiungchow — Qiongzhou (瓊州) 20° 03Ń 110° 21É Koshun, see South Cape. Lamocks — Nanpengdao (南澎島) 23° 16Ń 117° 17É Meiaco Sima (Ryukyus) — Miyako 24° 45Ń 125° 25É Middle Dog— Dongquandao (東犬島) 25° 58Ń 119° 59É N.E. Shantung Promontory — Chengshanju (成山角) 37° 24Ń 122° 42É Newchwang — Yingkou (營口) 40° 41Ń 122° 16É Ningpo — Ningbo (寧波) 29° 57Ń 121° 45É North Saddle — Huaniaoshan (花鳥山) 30° 52Ń 122° 40É Ockseu — Wuqiuyu (烏丘嶼) 25° 00Ń 119° 17É Oluanpi, see South Cape.

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Appendix A Pakhoi — Beihai (北海) 21° 29Ń 109° 07É Pedro Blanco — Daqingzhen (大青針) 22° 16Ń 115° 12É Pescadores — Penghudao (澎湖島) Quelpart — Cheju Do (제주도) 33° 24Ń 126° 33É Saddle Island — Sheshan (Shaweishan) (佘山) 31° 25Ń 122° 14É Sancian — Shangchuandao (上川島) 21° 41Ń 112° 46É Sicawei, see Zikawei. South Cape (Formosa) (南角), Eluanbi (鵝鑾鼻) 21° 54Ń 120° 51É St. John’s Island, see Sancian. Steep Island — Xiaoguishan (小龜山) 30° 21Ń 122° 35É

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Swatow — Shantou (汕頭) 23° 23Ń 116° 40É Takow — Gaoxiong (高雄) 22° 38Ń 120° 16É Taku (大沽) 38° 58Ń 117° 52É Tamsui — Danshui (淡水) 25° 10Ń 121 25° 52É Turnabout — Niushandao (牛山島) 25° 26Ń 119° 56É Urga — Ulaan Bator 47° 55Ń 106° 55É Wenchow — Wenzhou (温州) 28° 01Ń 120° 40É Wuhu (蕪湖) 31° 20Ń 118° 21É Zikawei — Xujiahui (徐家匯) 31° 15Ń 121° 26E

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Appendix B

Hong Kong Observatory Publications

Figg, F. G., Telegraphic Code Used for Issuing Storm-Warnings from the Hongkong Observatory, Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1898, 22 pp. Annual Research Reports (authored by Doberck until 1903, published by Hong Kong Government Printers): Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1884, 206 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1885, 192 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1886, 199 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1887, 166 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1888, 163 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1890, 121 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1891, 137 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1892, 243 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1893, 201 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1894, 154 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1895, 261 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1896, 213 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1897, 185 pp. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1898, 145 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1899, 142 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1900, 142 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1901, 139 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1902, 137 pp. Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1903, 143 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1904, 119 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1905, 129 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1906, 125 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1907, 121 pp.

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Appendix B Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1908, 119 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1909, 118 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1910, 123 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the year 1911, 124 pp. Meteorological Observations Made at the Royal Observatory Hong Kong in the year 1912, 118 pp. Director’s Annual Report (from Doberck unless indicated): Report for 1884 from the Government Astronomer, Sessional Papers, 1885, pp. 123–30. Annual Weather Report for 1884, Supplement to HKGG, 28 March 1885, pp. 261–72. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1885, Supplement to HKGG, 27 March 1886, pp. 231–3. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1886, HKGG, 28 May 1887, p. 606. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1887, Supplement to HKGG, 28 April 1888, pp. 435–49. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1888, HKGG, 13 April 1889, pp. 305–18. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1889, HKGG, 28 June 1890, pp. 601–13. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1890, HKGG, 6 June 1891, pp. 455–67. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1891, HKGG, 28 May 1892, pp. 491–519. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1892, HKGG, 2 September 1893, pp. 813–929. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1893, HKGG, 12 May 1894, pp. 399–431. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1894, HKGG, 8 June 1895, pp. 672–717. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1895, Supplement to HKGG, 19 September 1896, pp. 1–71. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1896, HKGG, 13 February 1897, pp. 79–93. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1897, HKGG, 29 January 1898, pp. 55–85. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1898, HKGG, 13 May 1899, pp. 731–50. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1899, HKGG, 3 February 1900, pp. 151–63. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1900, HKGG, 2 March 1901, pp. 425–34. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1901, HKGG, 15 March 1902, pp. 351–60. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1902 (F. G. Figg), HKGG, 13 March 1903, pp. 336–45. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1903 (F. G. Figg), HKGG, 18 March 1904, pp. 408–18. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1904, HKGG, 2 June 1905, pp. 744–54. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1905, HKGG, 12 April 1906, pp. 419–35. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1906, Supplement to HKGG, 26 April 1907, pp. 199–215.


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Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1907 (F. G. Figg), Supplement to HKGG, 10 April 1908, pp. 98–111. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1908 (F. G. Figg), Administrative Reports, 1908, pp. F1–F5. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1909 (F. G. Figg), Administrative Reports, 1909, pp. E1–E10. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1910 (F. G. Figg), Administrative Reports, 1910, pp. E1–E11. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1911 (F. G. Figg), Administrative Reports, 1911, pp. E1–E12.


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Appendix C

Publications of John I. Plummer

Observations of the Meteors of November 13–14, 1866, made at Glasgow Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 27, 31–4, 1867. Occultations of Stars by the Moon, Observed at the Durham Observatory 1867, November, 1868, May, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 29, 105, 1869. Observations of the Transit of Mercury, Nov. 4, 1868, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 29, 18–9, 1868. Equatorial Observations Made at the Durham Observatory, June to December 1868, Astronomische Nachrichten, 74, 11–4, 1869. Equatorial Observations Made at the Durham Observatory 1869, Astronomische Nachrichten, 75, 27–30, 1869. Note on an Aurora Borealis, April 2, 1869, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 29, 273–5, 1869. Remarks on Mr. Joynson’s Paper of Occultations, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 29, 295–6, 1869. Equatorial Observations Made at the Durham Observatory, 1869–1870, Astronomische Nachrichten, 76, 43–8, 1870. Observations of Comet II., 1870 (Coggia’s), Made at the Durham Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 77, 155–8, 1871. Equatorial Observations of Minor Planets Made at the Durham Observatory 1870, Astronomische Nachrichten, 77, 365–8, 1871. Equatorial Observations of Minor Planets Made at the Durham Observatory 1871, Astronomische Nachrichten, 79, 325–8, 1872. Schreiben des Herrn Plummer, Astronomen der Sternwarte des Herrn Bishop, an den Herausgeber (in English), Astronomische Nachrichten, 81, 65–8, 1873. Introduction to Astronomy, London: William Collins, Sons & Co., 1873, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1873; reprinted Whitefish, MT, USA: Kessinger Publishing Co., Whitefish, MT, USA, 2008. On the Apparent Projection of Stars on the Moon’s Disk, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 33, 345–9, 1873.

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Appendix C On the Apparent Projection of Stars on the Moon’s Disk, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 33, 417–9, 1873. Note on the Figure and Diameter of Venus, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 33, 422–4, 1873. Measures of the Diameter of Venus, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 33, 559–63, 1873. Equatorial Observations of Encke’s Comet Made at the Durham Observatory 1871, Astronomische Nachrichten, 80, 14–6, 1873. On Some Results of Temperature Observations at Durham, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 1, 241–6 and 264–6, 1873. The So-called ‘Meteor-cloud’ of February 5, Nature, 9, 322, 1874. Equatorial Observations of Henry’s Comet Made at the Durham Observatory 1873, Astronomische Nachrichten, 84, 79, 1874. Note on the Zodiacal Light, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 35, 63–4, 1874. with L. Schulhof, Observations of Comet V. 1874 (Coggia’s) Made at the Orwell Park Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 85, 277–82, 289–92, 1875. The Nebula Hypothesis; Its Present Condition, Popular Science Review, 12, 1875. Personal Equation in the Tabulation of Thermograms & c., Nature, 12, 395–6, 1875. Brilliant Meteor, Nature, 14, 505, 1876. On the Proper Motion of Bradley’s Star, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36, 112–6, 1876. Astronomical Nomenclature, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36, 117, 1876. Photometric Experiments on Light of Venus, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36, 351–5, 1876. On the Conjunction of Venus and Lambda Geminorum, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 37, 102–5, 1877. On the Collective Light and Distribution of the Fixed Stars, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 37, 436–9, 1877. The Lunar Eclipse, August 23rd, 1877, The Observatory, 1, 197–9, 1877. Distribution of Fixed Stars, The Observatory, 1, 252–3, 1877. Aid of the Sun in Relation to Evolution, Nature, 17, 303–4, 360, 1878. On the Supposed Influence of a Mass of Brickwork upon the Errors of a Transit Instrument in Its Neighbourhood, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 38, 367–9, 1878. Observations of Transit of Mercury, May 6, 1878, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 38, 413–4, 1878. Results of Observations of Comets Made at the Orwell Park Observatory 1877, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 65–70, 1879. Projection of Mercury on the Sun’s Corona, The Observatory, 3, 27–8, 1879. Observations of Brorsen’s Periodical Comet Made at the Orwell Park Observatory near Ipswich 1879, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 329–34, 1880.


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Height of the Aurora, Nature, 22, 362, 1880. Appearances of Comets in 1879, The Observatory, 3, 278–9, 1880. Meteorites and the Sun, The Observatory, 3, 581–2, 1880. Conjunction of Comet b. 1881 with a Star, The Observatory, 4, 277–7, 1881. Equatorial Observations of Comets Made at the Orwell Park Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 101, 163–8, 1882. with G. Cacciatore, Observations of Comet 1881 IV Made at the Orwell Park Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 101, 233–6, 1882. with B. Peter, Equatorial Observations of Comet 1881 III Made at the Orwell Park Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 101, 371–6, 379–84, 1882. Equatorial Observations of Comet 1882 I, Astronomische Nachrichten, 107, 37–42, 1884. Equatorial Observations of Comets Made at the Orwell Park Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 108, 435, 1884. Observations of Comet 1884 I (Pons 1812), Astronomische Nachrichten, 110, 103–6, 1885. Observations of Comet 1884 III (Wolf), Astronomische Nachrichten, 114, 169, 1886. Observations of Comets, Astronomische Nachrichten, 115, 289–92, 1886. 1886 VII. (Finlay), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 55, 1887. 1886 VIII. (Barnard), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 56, 1887. 1886 IX. (Barnard-Hartwing), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 57–8, 1887. 1887 II. (Brooks), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 58–60, 1887 1887 III. (Barnard), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 61–2, 1887. 1887 IV. (Barnard, May 12), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 48, 61, 1887. Observations of Olbers Comet 1887, Astronomische Nachrichten, 118, 207, 1888. V. 1887 (Olbers-Brooks), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 49, 73–4, 1888. I. 1888 (Sawerthal) Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 49, 75–8, 1888. III. 1888 (Brooks, Aug. 7), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 49, 370, 1889. e 1888 (Barnard, Sept. 2), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 49, 371–3, 1889. V. 1888 (Barnard, Oct. 30), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 49, 373–4, 1889. Brooks’ Comet (V. 1889), Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 50, 45, 1889. Araucaria Cones, Nature, 43, 29, 1890.


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Appendix C The Distances of the Stars, Nature, 43, 104–5, 1890. Observations of Comets, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 51, 1890. I. 1889 (Barnard, 1888, Sept. 2), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 51, 1890. V. 1888 (Barnard, Oct. 30), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 51, 1890. IV. 1889 (Davidson), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 52, 1890. V. 1889 (Brooks, July 6), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, p. 53, 1890. II. 1889 (Barnard, March 31), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 55, 1890. VI. 1889 (Swift), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 55, 1890. I. 1890 (Borelly), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 56, 1890. 1890 (Brooks), Observed at Orwell Park Observatory, Monthly Notes of the Royal Astronomical Society, 51, 56, 1890. The Origin of Typhoons, 27 pp., Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1910.


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Appendix D

Publications of A. W. Doberck

On Meteorology and Magnetism Markee Magnetic Dip, Nature, 26, 418–9, 1882. Sun-spots and Markree Rainfall, Nature, 26, 366–7, 1882. Instructions for Making Meteorological Observations Prepared for Use in China, p. 34, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Observatory, 1883. Magnetic Dip in South China and Formosa, Nature, 29, 214, 1884 On the Rainfall and Temperature of Markree, Sligo, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 10, 158–61, 1884. Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year 1885, Nature, 34, 148–9, 1886. The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Telegraph, 1886, p. 24 + map; reproduced in Nature, 35, 135–41, 1886. Also published as Special Series No. 1167 of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, Shanghai, 1887. Cause of September Typhoons in Hong Kong, Nature, 37, 439, 1888. The Meteorology of Southeast China in 1886, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 14, 217–21, 1888. On the Rainfall and Temperature of Victoria Peak, Nature, 38, 78, 1888. Upper and Lower Wind Currents over the Torrid Zone, Nature, 38, 565, 1888. On the Grass Minimum Thermometer, Nature, 38, 619, 1888. Rainfall in China in 1887, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 14, 246–7, 1888. The Law of Storms in China, Nature, 39, 301–2, 1889. Rainfall in China in 1888, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 15, 239, 1889. Meteorological Observations at Ichang, China, and at South Cape, Formosa, in 1888, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 15, 240–5, 1889. Mittlerer Luftdruck zu Iloilo (Philippinen), Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Jahrgang 6, Band 24, 156, 1889. Rainfall in China in 1889, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 16, 235, 1890. The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, 2nd edition, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Telegraph, 1890, p. 28 + plate; German translation, Über das Gesetz der Stuerme in den ostasiatischen Gewaessern, Vienna, 1891.

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Appendix D Climate of Hong Kong, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 17, 37–40, 1891. Severe Frost at Hong Kong, Nature, 47, 535–6, 1893. The Typhoons in China Seas, London: Shipmasters’ Society, 1896, p. 37. Some Observations of Magnetic Inclination in China, Terrestrial Magnetism, 1, 40–1, 1896. Die Zugstrassen der Teifune, Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Jahrgang 14, Band 32, 101–2, 1897. Die Winter-Typhone im sudlichem chinesischen Meere, Meteorologische Zeitschrift, Jahrgang 14, Band 32, 297–9, 1897. Instructions for Making Meteorological Observations, Prepared for Use in China; and the Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, Shanghai: Imperial Maritime Customs, Special Series No. 7, 1897. The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, 3rd edition, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1898, p. 39. Translation by Dr. Paul Bergholz as Die Taifune in den ostasiatischen Gewässern, Nach Doberck, E. Hölzel, 1898; also in Meteorolog. Z., 15, 332–41, 1898; and in Gaea, 25, Nos. 1 and 2, 1898. Weather Forecasting in Hong Kong, Monthly Weather Review, 27, 98–9, 1899. The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, 4th edition, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Observatory, 1904, p. 43. Resultate der meteorologischen Beobachtungen zu Hongkong 1894–1903, Meteorolog. Z., 23, 367–8, 1906. Wasserhosen, Meteorolog. Z., 23, 371–3, 1906. Hygrometric Tables for Use with Rotating Dry and Wet Bulb Thermometers, London: Williams & Norgate, 1917, p. 17. On Astronomy Neue parabolische Elemente des Tempel’schen Cometen II. 1869, Astronomische Nachrichten, 79, 383, 1872. Parabolische Elemente des Cometen III. 1840, Astronomische Nachrichten, 80, 377–8, 1873. Ephemeride des Cometen II 1867 von Herrn Doberck in Pulkowa, Astronomische Nachrichten, 81, 189, 1873. Parabolische Elemente des Cometen I. 1801, Astronomische Nachrichten, 81, 321–4, 1873. Bahnbestimmung der cometen I 1801, III 1840 und II 1869. Inauguaral–Dissertation … zu Jena, p. 21. Copenhagen: I. Cohens Buchdrukerei, 1873. Definitive Elements of the Comets I. 1801; I. 1824; III. 1840, II. 1869, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 34, 426, 1874. Definitive Determination of the Orbit of Comet I. 1824, Astronomische Nachrichten, 84, 75–80, 1874. Hyperbolic Elements of Comet I. 1845, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 35, 104, 1874. On the First Comet of 1845, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad. 25, 459–90, 1875. On μ2 Boötis (as a Revolving Double Star), Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad. 25, 481–90, 1875. On the Binary Stars σ Coronae, Ï— Ophiuchi, Î³ Leonis, Î¶ Aquarii, 36 Andromeda and Î¹ Leonis, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad. 25, 581–603, 1875.


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Elements of Binary Stars, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 35, 373, 1875. Elements of Ï— Ophiuchi and Î³ Leonis, Algieba, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 35, 397, 1875. Elements of Î¶ Aquarii, 36 Andromedæ, and Î¹ Leonis, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 35, 408–9, 1875. New Elements of μ2 Boötis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 85, 147–52, 1875. Hyperbolical Elements of Comet I 1845, Astronomische Nachrichten, 85, 205–8, 1875. Elements of Î£ Coronae borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 85, 323–8, 1875. Provisional Elements of Ï— Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 85, 331, 1875. Elements of Ï— Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 13–16, 1875. Comparison of Elements of Ï— Ophiuchi with Pulkowa Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 79, 1875. Elements of Î³ Leonis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 129–32, 1875. Elements of Î¶ Aquarii, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 155–8, 1875. Elements of 36 Andromedae Î£ 73, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 187–90, 1875. Elements of 44 Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 86, 377–80, 1875. On the Binary Stars 44 Boötis, Î· Cassiopeiæ and μ Draconis, with Addenda to Previous Memoirs, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad. 26, part 1–30, 1876. On Ï› Leonis considered as a Revolving Double Star, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., 26, 165–86, 1876. Provisional Elements of Ï› Leonis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 87, 223, 1876. Elements of Î· Cassiopeiae, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 45–8, 1876. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 63, 1876. Elements of Ï› Leonis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 109, 1876. Double Star Observations Compared with Elements, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 199–202, 1876. New Elements of Î£ Coronae Borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 233–6, 1876. Provisional Elements of Î» Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 287, 1876. Circular Orbit of Î¾ Librae (=Scorpii), Astronomische Nachrichten, 88, 297, 1876. Elements of Î¾ Boötis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 95, 1877. First Elements of Î³ Coronae Borealis after Struve’s Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 134, 1877. Elliptical Elements of Î¶ Librae, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 135, 1877. Second Elements of Î³ Coronae Borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 171, 1877. Markree Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 181, 1877. Elements of Î» Ophiuchi and Ï— Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 215, 1877. Elements of xi Boötis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 89, 259–62, 1877. On Double Star Calculation, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 57–64, 1877. On Î´ Cygni, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 153, 1877. Elements of p Eridani, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 191, 1877. On Cooper’s and Amici’s Double-Star-Measures, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 303, 1877.


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Appendix D Provisional Elements of Î£ 1768 and Î£ 3121, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 313, 1877. Elements of Î£ 3062, Astronomische Nachrichten, 90, 319, 1877. Binary Stars, London: Taylor & Francis, 1878. Binary Stars, The Observatory, 2, 110–6, 1878. Binary Stars (part 2), The Observatory, 2, 140–4, 1878. Binary Stars (part 3), The Observatory, 2, 169–74, 1878. Binary Stars (part 4), The Observatory, 2, 209–17, 1878. On Double-Star Calculations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 91, 119–22, 1878. Provisional Elements of Î± Geminorum, Astronomische Nachrichten, 91, 123–8, 1878. On Double-Star Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 91, 317, 1878. Remarks on Nebulae, Astronomische Nachrichten, 91, 335, 1878. On Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 33–44, 1878. The Large Meridian-Circle in Markree, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 65–8, 1878. Elements of μ 2 Boötis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 157, 1878. Markree Measures of Planets, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 159, 1878. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 181–90, 1878. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 201–8, 1878. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 209–20, 1878. On the Correction of Approximate Double-Star Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 221–2, 1878. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 227–36, 1878. Observations with Amici’s Double-Image Micrometer, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 239, 1878. Regulus Observed with Graham’s Square-Bar Micrometer, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 241, 1878. Values of M Tabulated for Different e with Argument E, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 275–8, 1878. Values of E Tabulated for Different e with Argument M, Astronomische Nachrichten, 92, 279–82, 1878. D’Arrests’ Spectroscopical Researches [an abstract of Undersögelser over de nebulose Stjerner i Henseende til deres spectralanalytiske Egenskaber, 1872], Nature, 17, 311–3, 1878. On the Distribution of Red Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 31, 1879. New Elements of 36 Andromedea Î£ 73, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 121–4, 1879. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 147–52, 1879. Provisional Elements of Î± Centauri, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 207, 1879. On Saturn’s Ring, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 255, 1879. New Elements of Î³ Leonis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 94, 255, 1879. Concerning Planetoid Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 81, 1879. On the Brightness and Parallax of Double-Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 197, 1879.


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On the Distribution of Double-Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 205, 1879. Observations of the Companion of Sirius, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 329, 1879. New Elements of Î£ 3062, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 331, 1879. On the Colour of Revolving Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 341–5, 1879. On the Brightness of the Components of Revolving Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 347, 1879. Elements of O Î£ 298, Astronomische Nachrichten, 95, 383, 1879. Elements of 4 Aquarii and u 2 Herculis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 111, 1880. Elements of O Î£ 235, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 221, 1880. Elements of O Î£ 235, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 235, 1880. On the Adjustment of a Large Equatoreal, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 297, 1880. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 96, 365, 1880. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 97, 39, 1880. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 97, 191, 1880. Elements of Î¶ Cancri, Astronomische Nachrichten, 97, 283–6, 1880. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 97, 286, 1880. Formulae for Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 98, 31, 1881. (title unknown), Copernicus, 1, 143, 1881. On double stars, Copernicus, 1, 208, 1881. Elements of Î¶ Herculis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 98, 59, 1881. Elements of Î· Coronae Borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 98, 157–60, 1881. Elements of 25 Canum Venaticorum = Î£ 1768, Astronomische Nachrichten, 98, 271, 1881. (with J. Birmingham) Observations of the New Variable Red Star in Cygnus, Astronomische Nachrichten, 100, 75, 1881. Phenomena of Jupiter’s Satellites, Astronomische Nachrichten, 100, 199–201, 1881. Transits of the Red Spot of Jupiter, Astronomische Nachrichten, 100, 201, 1881. On the Poles of Double Star-Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 102, 141, 1882. with P. Henry, L. Swift, H. Draper, N. de Konkoly and O. C. Wendell, On Comets, Sidereal Messenger, 1, 10–13, 1882. Double Stars, Nature, 26, 153–5, 177–9, 1882. The Comet, Nature, 27, 129, 1883. The Transit of Venus, Nature, 27, 157–8, 1883. The Transit of Venus Observed at the Markree Observatory, Copernicus, 3, 19–20, 1884. Crepuscular Rays in China, Nature, 37, 464, 1888. Telegraphic Determination of the Longitude of Haiphong, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 48, 282–4, 1888. On Comet Seeking, J. Liverpool Astron. Soc., 6, No. 7, 1888. On the Rate of the Hongkong Standard Clock, Astronomische Nachrichten, 120, 183–6, 1889. Hongkong Observations of Eclipses and Other Phenomena, Astronomische Nachrichten, 124, 183, 1890.


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Appendix D Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 125, 195–208, 1890. On the Rate of the Hongkong Standard Clock, Astronomische Nachrichten, 125, 359–62, 1890. Markree Observations of Double Stars, Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., 29, 379–426, 1890. Markree Double-Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 126, 365–80, 1891. Observations of Occultations of Stars by the Moon, Astronomische Nachrichten, 128, 383, 1891. Total Lunar Eclipse 1892 Nov. 4 at the Hongkong Observatory, Astronomische Nachrichten, 131, 399, 1893. Occulation of Jupiter 1892 Oct. 6, Astronomische Nachrichten, 132, 143, 1893. The Perseids on the 10th August 1893, Astronomische Nachrichten, 134, 311, 1894. On Heis’s T Radiants, The Observatory, 18, 199, 1895. The Time-service of the Hongkong Observatory, The Observatory, 18, 297–301, 1895. The Eccentric Anomaly in Double-Star Calculations, The Observatory, 18, 434–5, 1895. On the Axes and Periods of Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 138, 79, 1895. Transits of the Moon across the Meridian of Hongkong, Astronomische Nachrichten, 138, 163–6, 1895. Radiants of Shooting-Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 138, 299–302, 1895. Definitive Elements of the Orbit of Comet 1824 I, Astronomische Nachrichten, 138, 321– 32, 1895. A Formula to Correct Double-Star Observations for Refraction, The Observatory, 19, 268–70, 1896. Approximate Values of Î½, with Argument M for Different e, Astronomische Nachrichten, 139, 51–4, 1896. Approximate Values for M for Different e, with Argument v, Astronomische Nachrichten, 139, 55–8, 1896. Approximate Values of r: a for Different e, with Argument Î½, Astronomische Nachrichten, 139, 59–62, 1896. Elements of the Orbit of Î± Centauri, Astronomische Nachrichten, 139, 273–80, 1896. Radiants of Shooting-Stars observed in Hongkong, Astronomische Nachrichten, 140, 375– 80, 1896. On the Elements of the Orbit of Î³ Virginis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 141, 57–70, 1896. On the Orbit of Î· Coronae Borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 141, 153–70, 1896. Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 141, 289–8, 1896. On the Accidental Errors of Talcott Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 143, 159, 1897. On the Orbit of μ 2 Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 144, 129–38, 1897. On the Orbit of Î¶ Herculis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 144, 241–51, 1897. On the Orbit of Î³ Leonis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 144, 251–4, 1897. Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 145, 151–6, 1898. On the Constant of Aberration, Astronomische Nachrichten, 146, 437, 1898. On Double Star Orbits: Their Periods and Eccentricities, Astronomische Nachrichten, 147,


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251, 1898. On the Elements of the Orbit of Castor, Astronomische Nachrichten, 147, 337, 1898. On the Elements of the Orbit of OÎ£ 387, Astronomische Nachrichten, 147, 339–42, 1898. On the Elements of the Orbits of Î£ 228 and OÎ£ 400, Astronomische Nachrichten, 147, 343–6, 1898. Beobachtungen auf der Sternwarte in Hongkong Nov. 14, Astronomische Nachrichten, 148, 151, 1899. On the Proper Motions of Some Southern Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 148, 273–8, 1898. Proper Motions of Some Southern Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 149, 395, 1898. Observations on the Zodical Light, Astronomische Nachrichten, 150, 37–40, 1899. Observations on Southern Variable Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 150, 169–76, 1899. Proper Motions of Some Southern Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 152, 281–4, 1900. On the Magnitudes of 919 Fixed Stars Determined from Sequences Observed by Sir John Herschel during the Years 1835 to 1838, II, Astrophysical Journal, 11, 192–219 and 270–87, 1900. Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 154, 165–86, 1901. On the Orbit of Î· Cassiopeiae, Astronomische Nachrichten, 156, 353–62, 1901. Ephemeris of Castor, Astronomische Nachrichten, 158, 363, 1902. On the Distribution of Binary Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 158, 363, 1902. Hongkong Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 159, 85–107, 1902. Further Hongkong Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 159, 107–14, 1902. On the Accuracy of Markree Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 159, 307–9, 1902. with Pickering, E. C., On the Magnitudes of 923 Fixed Stars Determined from Sequences Observed by Sir John Herschel during the Years 1835 to 1838, Annals Harvard College Observatory, 41, 213–35, 1902. On the Orbit of Î¾ Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 163, 177, 1903. On the Orbit of Î² 416, Astronomische Nachrichten, 163, 313–6, 1903. On the Orbit of Ïƒ Ursae majoris, Astronomische Nachrichten, 163, 371–3, 1903. On the Orbit of 99 Herculis = A. C. 15, Astronomische Nachrichten, 163, 373–6, 1903. Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 164, 309–40, 1903. On the Orbit of Castor, Astronomische Nachrichten, 166, 145–8, 1904. On the Orbit of Î¶ Sagittarii, Astronomische Nachrichten, 166, 149, 1904. On the Orbit of Sirius, Astronomische Nachrichten, 166, 321–6, 1904. On the Orbit of Î³ Coronae borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 169, 133–8, 1905. On the Orbit of Î£ Coronae borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 169, 289–98, 1905. Catalogue of Right-Ascensions of 2120 Southern Stars for the Epoch 1900 from Observations


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Appendix D Made at the Hong Kong Observatory during the Years 1898 to 1903, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1905, p. 75. On the Orbit of Ï— Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 170, 101, 1906. On the Orbit of Î³ Centauri, Astronomische Nachrichten, 170, 107, 1906. On the Elements of the Orbit of Î² 733 = 85 Pegasi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 172, 91, 1906. On the Elements of the Orbit of 70 p Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 172, 161–76, 1906. Hongkong Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 173, 17–40, 1907. On the Orbits of Î¶ Cancri, Ï› Leonis and H I 39, Astronomische Nachrichten, 173, 241–62, 1907. On the Orbits of Î¾ Scorpii, Î£ 2173, Î£ 3121, and μ 2 Herculis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 174, 257–78, 1907. Elements of the Orbit of Î± Centauri, Astronomische Nachrichten, 175, 209–14, 1907. On the Accuracy of Measures Made by the Principal Double Star Observers, Astronomische Nachrichten, 177, 65–70, 1908. Elements of the Orbit of Gamma Virginis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 177, 161–72, 1908. On Î¸ Orionis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 178, 363, 1908. On the Hypothetical Parallaxes of Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 178, 381, 1908. Report of his Observatory, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 69, 281–2, 1909. New Parallel Wire Micrometer, English Mechanic and World of Science, Issue 2307, 437, June 1909. On Double-Star Observing, English Mechanic and World of Science, Issue 2308, 469, June 1909. On the Orbit of Î¶ Cancri C, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 1–8, 1909. On the Orbit of 42 Comae Berenices = Î£ 1728, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 55–60, 1909. On the Hypothetical Parallaxes of Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 299, 1909. On the Poles of Double-Star Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 299–302, 1909. On the Orbit of Eta Cassiopeiae, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 383–5, 1909. On the Orbit of Gamma Coronae Borealis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 179, 385, 1909. Sir William Herschel’s Observations of Distances between the Components of Close Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 180, 155–60, 1909. On the Orbit of xi Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 181, 19–22, 1909. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 181, 97–132, 1909. Elizabeth Thompson Double Star Micrometer, Astronomische Nachrichten, 181, 387, 1909. Elements of the Orbit of 44 i Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 182, 27–32, 1909. Double-Star Observations Compared with Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 182, 87–94, 1909. On the Accuracy of Measures Made by Some Double-Star Observers, Astronomische


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Nachrichten, 182, 107–10, 1909. On the Orbit of Î£ 1768, Astronomische Nachrichten, 183, 233–8, 1910. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 184, 17–56, 1910. Synopsis of Elements of Orbits of Some Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 184, 131, 1910. On the Orbit of 40 O 2 Eridani, Astronomische Nachrichten, 184, 133, 1910. On the Elizabeth Thompson Micrometer, Astronomische Nachrichten, 185, 251, 1910. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 187, 305–36, 1911. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 188, 317–30, 1911. On the Orbit of Î£ 2525, Astronomische Nachrichten, 189, 41–4, 1911. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 189, 297–312, 1911. On the Proper Motions of the Fixed Stars, English Mechanic and World of Science, Issue 2407, 325, May 1911. On the Orbit of 4 Aquarii, Astronomische Nachrichten, 190, 199–202, 1912. Observations of Comets, Astronomische Nachrichten, 190, 221–4, 1912. On the Orbit of Î³ Coronae Australis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 191, 125–8, 1912. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 191, 201–14, 1912. On the Masses of Double Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 191, 425, 1912. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 192, 277–88, 1912. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 193, 421–32, 1913. On the Orbit of Î² 101, Astronomische Nachrichten, 194, 301–4, 1913. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 195, 145–58, 1913. On the Effect of Definition on Micrometric Measures, Astronomische Nachrichten, 196, 45–50, 1914. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 196, 253–68, 1914. On the Effect of Definition on Micrometric Measures, Astronomische Nachrichten, 197, 89–92, 1914. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 197, 169–82, 1914. On the Spectra of Double Stars and the Eccentricities of Their Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 197, 397, 1914. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 198, 329–44, 1914. On Ring-micrometer Observations of Comets, Astronomical Journal, 29, 28–9, 1915. Observations of RW Cygni, Astronomical Journal, 31, 23, 1917. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 2, 43–4, 1918. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 2, 125–6, 1918. Observations of Z Aurigoe, Journal des Observateurs, 2, 165, 1918. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 2, 208–10, 1919. Observations of Variable Stars (suite), Journal des Observateurs, 3, 1–5, 1919. Observations of Variable Stars (suite), Journal des Observateurs, 3, 105–8, 1919.


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Appendix D Observations on Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 32, 31–2, 1919. Observations on Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 32, 73–80, 1919. Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 32, 121–6, 1919. Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 32, 164–5, 1919. Observations on Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 32, 181–4, 1920. Observations on Variable Stars, Summary of Results, Astronomical Journal, 32, 185–91, 1920. Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomical Journal, 33, 63–9, 1920. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 211, 321–56, 1920. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 212, 499–504, 1921. Method of Calculating Double Star Orbits, Astronomische Nachrichten, 214, 6, 1921. On the Orbit of xi Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 214, 89–8, 1921. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 217, 97–118, 1923. Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 221, 305–12, 1924. Observations of Variable Stars, Astronomische Nachrichten, 222, 273–80, 1924. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 7, 33–5, 1924. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 7, 64–7, 1924. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 7, 85–9, 1924. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 224, 81–94, 1925. Observations of Variable Stars, Journal des Observateurs, 8, 10–14, 1925. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 225, 337–52, 1925. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 228, 401–16, 1926. Double Star Observations, 1875–1927, Astronomische Abhandlungen. Ergänzungshefte zu den Astronomischen Nachrichten, Bd. 7–9, Kiel: Verlag der Astronomischen Nachrichten, 1927, 133 pp. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 239, 49–60, 1930. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 243, 121–32, 1931. Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 248, 187–94, 1933. Sutton Double Star Observations, Astronomische Nachrichten, 254, 41–8, 1935. On the History of Astronomy Ole RÅ‚mer, Nature, 17, 105–8, 1877. The Inventor of the Telescope, The Observatory, 2, 364–70, 1879. The Hong Kong Observatory, Nature, 29, 596–7, 1884. Markree Observatory, The Observatory, 7, 283–8, 1884. Markree Observatory (continued), The Observatory, 7, 329–32, 1884. The Hong Kong Observatory, Nature, 34, 572–3, 1886.


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Notes Chapter 1 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

Fairbank et al. (1975), Letter 69. In the case of Hong Kong, for medicine see Evans (1987); for marine studies from about 1860, Morton (1990). There was some chemistry (physical chemistry at the Mint, 1866–68, and from 1879 a ‘Government Apothecary and Analyst’ in the Colonial Surgeon’s Department). Civil engineering is described by C. Michael Guilford, A Look Back: Civil Engineering in Hong Kong 1841–1941, J. Hong Kong Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc., 37, 81–135, 1998. A. Chu, Amateur Astronomy in Hong Kong — A Brief History, 2003; available at www.alanchuhk@HK_Astro.doc. According to the official notification in the Hong Kong Government Gazette in July 1912, it was to be known as ‘The Royal Observatory, Hongkong’. Needham (1959), §21; Ho (2003). James Cunningham, Some Observations of the Mercury’s Altitude, with the Changes of the Weather at Emuy in China. Lat. 24 degrees 20´. No., Phil. Trans., 21(256), 323–30, 1699. Gaston Demaree and Øyvind Nordli, On the Amount of Rain Fallen in Macau, China, in the Year 1780, Meded. Zitt. K. Acad. Overzeese Wet., 49, 497–506, 2003. Ibid. Huib J. Zuidervaart and Rob H. Van Gent, ‘A Bare Outpost of Learned European Culture on the Edge of the Jungles of Java’ — Johan Maurits Mohr (1716–1775) and the Emergence of Instrumental and Institutional Science in Dutch Indonesia, Isis, 95, 1–33, 2004. Ho (2003), §1. Coching Chu, Some Chinese Contributions to Meteorology, Geographical Review, 5, 136–9, 1918. Under ‘Meteorology’, in Encyclopaedia Sinica, ed. Samuel Couling, Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1917, pp. 349–61. De’er Zhang and Gaston Demaree, Northern China Maximum Temperature in the Summer of 1743: A Historical Event of Burning Summer in Relatively Warm Climate Background, Chinese Science Bulletin, 49, 2508–14, 2004. Ibid. Khrgian (1970), p. 13. MacGowan (1853). An American medical doctor and Protestant missionary, MacGowan arrived in Hong Kong in 1843 and died fifty years later in Shanghai. His early missionary work at Ningbo and Shanghai was followed by a stint, 1862–1865, in the Federal Army. He then returned to China as an agent of a syndicate planning to build a telegraph line

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Notes to pages 6–14

18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

to China via the Bering Straits and participated in the translation programme run from the Jiangnan Arsenal. In 1879 he took up a position with the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs, where he wrote medical reports of lasting value from Wenzhou. See MacPherson (1987), Elman (2005) and Memorials of Protestant Missions to the Chinese: Giving a List of Their Publications and Obituary Notices of the Deceased, Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1867, p. 133. Reid (1849). Reid (1850) also has a chapter on typhoons in the China Sea, but it lacks many of the diagrams of the earlier book. It should be noted that as late as 1900, the Jesuits, in the masthead of their publications, gave the longitude of their observatory at Zikawei relative to Paris, although they seem to have invariably used Greenwich as reference in the body of the text. Widely described in recent years, see for instance Elman (2005). The only other material in Chinese related to meteorology are two articles in the August and September 1876 issues of Gezhi huibian (格致彙編, The Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine, Shanghai). These are translations by John Fryer from an elementary British publication, Chamber’s Introduction to Science; they describe the mercury and aneroid barometers (‘wind-rain meter’) but do not have anything to say about typhoons. Climate of Canton and Macao, Chinese Repository, 1, 488–91, 1833. Meyen (1835). He locates it at Cap Syng-moon, by which he seems to mean the straits between North Lantau and Tuen Mun. Chretien-Louis-Joseph de Guignes, son of the famous orientalist Joseph de Guignes, arrived at Canton as consul in 1784 and remained in the country for seventeen years, as a trader and interpreter. He appears to have only made records for a year. In later life he is known as the author of a plagiarized Chinese-Latin dictionary. Thomas Beale, English merchant and opium importer, spent forty-nine years in Macao from his arrival in 1792 until his death there in 1841. A colourful character, whose fortunes took a serious turn for the worse in later life, at the time of the botanist Meyen’s visit he had a garden described as the most lavish in the territory, a magnet for his wandering visitor. Roberts (1837), §12. Khrgian (1970), p. 131. Fritsche (1877), p. 142. See for example, MacPherson (1987). Circular No. 28 of the Inspectorate-General of Customs, 12 November 1869. Fairbank et al. (1975), Letter 56, 29 May 1873. See also Wright (1950), p. 304. Ibid., Letter 66. Ibid., Letter 49, 14 March 1873. Ibid., Letter 56. Ibid. Ibid., Letter 55, 23 May 1873. Ibid., Letter 67. Ibid., Letter 69. Ibid., Letter 82, n3. Henry Francis Blanford (1834–93); Letter No. 41 in Vol. 1 of Chen and Han (1990). Fairbank et al. (1975), Letter 113. Ibid., Letter 142.


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251

43. Report from the Government Astronomer, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 17 November 1883, pp. 876–80. 44. Mark Elvin, Who Was Responsible for the Weather, Osiris, 13, 213–37, 1998. The attitude, of course, still occurs in parts of the world to this day. 45. Ibid., p. 227, in a translation of Da Qing Shizong Yongzheng huangdi shengxun, juan 8, pp. 4–7. 46. Fritsche (1877), p. 127. 47. Hong, Liu et al. (2006), §11. 48. For example, Hebe Vessuri in Salomon et al. (1994), pp. 168–200. 49. Nature, 6, 357–8, 1882. 50. Ralph Abercromby, On Meldrum’s Rules for Handling Ships in the Southern Indian Ocean, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 44, 314–7, 1888. 51. For a brief biography of Faura see Bernad (2006), pp. 3–10. 52. Also listed as Mantawalok-Kekee, and Mantawalok-Kelee. Where was it? No such name is to be found nowadays attached to an island in the Celebes, and the coordinates, 0°32´ S, 122°20´ E quoted by Saderra Masó and elsewhere, do not define any island. Other reports are no more helpful, saying that it was only half a mile across, and ‘two miles from the Celebes coast’. It is almost certainly the very small island labelled on modern maps as Mantawatukiki at 0° 30´ 56” S, 123° 05´ 46” E, about ninety kilometres away from the location specified. The original destination of the expedition was Taliabu Island further south, but problems with the ship meant they could only make as far as Mantawalok, already in the swath of totality, in time. 53. Their sketch of the solar corona is reproduced in Procter (1871), p. 334. Lockyer mentioned the observations, attributing them only to Captain Bullock, in a lecture published in Nature, 4, 232, 1871. As recently as 2005 their sketch of the solar corona has been cited and reproduced, in Richard Woo, Relating White-Light Coronal Images to Magnetic Fields and Plasma Flow, Solar Physics, 231, 71–85, 2005. 54. Saderra Masó (1915), §8. Briefer accounts of the Manila Observatory are given in James J. Hennessy, The Manila Observatory, Philippine Studies, 8, 99–120, 1960, and John N. Schumacher, One Hundred Years of Jesuit Scientists: The Manila Observatory 1865–1965, Philippine Studies, 13, 258–86, 1965. The early archives of the Observatory were destroyed in 1945. 55. Saderra Masó (1915), §16. 56. Fritsche (1877), pp. 199, 262. 57. It is surprising that no formal history of the Zikawei Observatory has been written but fragmentary accounts occur in various places, notably, Gherzi (1951), and Boletim Instituto Português de Hongkong, 45–57, 1950; J. Dehergne, Zi-Ka-Wei — l’Observatoire des Cyclones, La Meteorologie, 4, 179–88, 1976; Shu and Jiang (1997), §16; Pyenson (1993), §6; Udias (2003), §7 and Zhou (2005), pp. 160–73. 58. M. Dechevrens, Magnetic Observations at Zi-Ka-Wei, Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), 22, 440, 1874. 59. Nature, 30, 388, 1884. 60. Udias (2003). 61. Pyenson (1993), p. 162. 62. Noted in The Observatory, 8, 27–8, 1885. 63. Auguste Chevalier, L’exploration Scientifique, in Maspero (1930), pp. 123–4. 64. Pyenson (1989), §3.


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252

Notes to pages 21–29 65. Zaiki et al. (2006); and T. Tsukahara, Reconstructing the Climate of NineteenthEast Asia from the Perspective of the History of Science, Proceedings of International Commission on History of Meteorology (ICHM) from Beaufort to Bjerknes and Beyond. Critical Perspectives on Observing, Analyzing and Predicting Weather and Climate, Weilheim, Germany, 5–9 July 2004. 66. In Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natür-Und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio, starting with Vol. 1, Part 1, May, 1873. There are records of earlier measurements by local, and expatriate, observers, these now of some importance in discussions of climate change. See for example, J. C. Hepburn in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, 2, 215–6, 1874, and Zaiki et al. (2006). 67. Ho (2003), pp. 24–5. 68. Bernard (1847), pp. 210–5. 69. Eitel (1895), p. 176. 70. Ho (2003), pp. 34–43. 71. Burton (1997), pp. 59–65. 72. James B. Thompson, Some Remarks on the Climate of Hong Kong, Simmond’s Colonial Magazine, 6, 87–8, 1845. 73. William R. E. Smart, Observations on the Climatology, Topography, and Diseases of Hong-Kong, and the Canton-River Station, Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London, 1, 191–205, 1863. 74. Hermann de Schlagintweit, Numerical Elements of Indian Meteorology, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 153, 525–42, 1863. 75. Burton (1997), pp. 59–65. 76. Doberck in Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year 1885, Appendix D. 77. Ho (2003), pp. 44–53. 78. Eitel (1895), pp. 514–5. 79. Nature, 11, 168–9, 1874. 80. Piddington, in the 1860 edition of his book, pp. 225–8, relates several reports of apparent earthquakes occurring just before or during storms. See also James F. Lander, Lowell F. Whiteside and Paul Hattori, The Tsunami History of Guam 1849–1993, Science of Tsunami Hazards, 20(3), 158–74, 2002. 81. Algué (1904), §10. 82. For Gherzi, see G. J. Bell, Father Ernesto Gherzi, S.J., 1886–1973 — An Appreciation, Weather, 29(5), 1974, reprinted in J. Hong Kong Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc., 14, 85–91, 1974. The interaction between typhoons and earthquakes has been long debated but it is only in 2009 that convincing evidence has appeared with the discovery of the correlation of seismic disturbances and typhoons in Taiwan, this adding plausibility to Gherzi’s ideas; see Chi Ching Liu, Alan T. Linde and I. Selwyn Saks, Slow Earthquakes Triggered by Typhoons, Nature, 459, 833–6, 2009. 83. See CO129/286, pp. 154–6.

Chapter 2 1. 2. 3. 4.

Nature, 25, 39–40, 1881. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 24 February 1877. Letter of 5 October 1877 to Acting Colonial Secretary, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 17 November 1877. Ryder to Governor, 30 October 1877, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 17 November 1877.


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5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28.


253

Legislative Council meeting 12 November 1877, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 24 November 1877. CO129/186, p. 265. Proceedings of the Royal Society, 17, 81–90, 1868. He had aspirations for a scientific career from an early age, having within a month of his sixteenth birthday submitted a note on a problem in Euclid to the Philosophical Magazine; John Hennessy Jun., Direct Demonstration of the Fortieth Proposition of Euclid, The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 3, p. 312, October 1850. James Joyce, Ulysses, New York: The Modern Library, 1961, p. 592. Pope Hennessy is also believed to be the main inspiration for the character Phineas Finn in two novels by Trollope, and makes a brief appearance as Hope Ennythink in the novel Broken to Harness by Edmund Yates. Pope-Hennessy (1984), Bresnihan (1990), Lowe and McLaughlin (1992). Roger T. Stearn, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 26, pp. 379–82. As a colonial governor Pope Hennessy regularly reported to the Colonial Office, but as he simultaneously was holding the position of consul general to Brunei he also reported to the Foreign Office. For example, by J. Norman Lockyer in Nature, 4, 232, 1871. It was the same eclipse that was observed by the Manila fathers at Mantawalok in the Celebes, noted in the previous chapter. F. E. Dixon, Irish Meteorologists, Ir. Astron. J., 9, 240–5, 1970. CO489/1, 3 January 1873. Price was also known to Governor Kennedy, under whom he had also served at Freetown. CO129/186, p. 267. Legislative Council 10 September 1880, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 11 September 1880. China Mail and Hong Kong Daily Press, 8 September 1880. Saderra Masó (1915), §6. One Hundred Years of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, 1870–1970, Hong Kong: Tung Wah Hospital, 1971; 2 volumes, edited by the Board of Directors, vol. 1, pp. 178 and 220. Hong Kong Daily Press, in the autumn of 1881 (unseen), reproduced in the North China Daily News, 29 October 1881. The cemetery, located where Wah Fu Estate now stands, was resumed by government in 1959, and although the graves were moved elsewhere it seems that the monument was demolished. J. Pope Hennessy to the Legislative Council, 7 February 1882, Hong Kong Administrative Reports for 1881; for Price’s reply see China Mail, 11 August 1882. J. M. Price to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 7 August 1880, in CO129/191, p. 531. CO489/3, 26 July 1880. For pen-portraits of these men see Henry James Lethbridge, Adventurers in Hong Kong: The Marques de Mores and David de Mayrena, J. Hong Kong Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc., 14, 28–57, 1974. China Mail, 22 February 1882. For all details see Hong Kong Government Gazette, 3 September 1881. Nature, 25, 39–40, 1881. China Mail, 6 September 1881.


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254

Notes to pages 36–46 29. Higuchi (2002), pp. 198–202. Elizabeth Baigent, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 42, pp. 498–9. Obituary in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 54, 196–8, 1894. 30. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 3 September 1881. 31. China Mail, 9–14 March 1882. 32. Saderra Masó (1915), p. 67. 33. Peking Gazette, 21 December 1878, reported in the China Mail, 27 February 1879. 34. H. Fritsche, The Amount of Precipitation (Rain and Snow) of Peking, The China Review, 10, 120–3, 1881. 35. Legislative Council, 23 August 1881, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 3 September 1881. 36. CO129/195, pp. 20–4. 37. C. P. Lucas in CO129/195, pp. 15–17. 38. Ibid. 39. Mr. Herbert in CO129/195, p. 19 [Robert G. W. Herbert, permanent undersecretary at the Colonial Office, 1871–92]. 40. CO129/195, p. 17. 41. CO129/196, pp. 536–7. 42. CO129/197, pp. 262–3. 43. CO129/195, p. 17. 44. Ibid. 45. CO129/195, pp. 98–100. 46. The contents of this dispatch we know from the local press, see China Mail, 13 March and 11 August 1882, Hong Kong Telegraph, 15 March 1882. 47. CO129/197, pp. 259–60. 48. The scandal is extensively described in Pope-Hennessy (1984), pp. 214–24; and Bresnihan (1990), pp. 109–18. 49. ‘Veritas’ in China Mail, 5 September 1881. 50. Hong Kong Telegraph, 26 September 1881. 51. North China Daily News, 31 August 1881. 52. Younger brother of Robert Hart, a Customs commissioner from 1872. 53. North China Daily News, 1 October 1881. 54. North China Herald, 31 January 1882. 55. Full details in North China Herald, 31 January 1882. 56. CO129/206, pp. 456–8. 57. Saderra Masó (1915), p. 69. 58. 29 April 1882 in CO129/206, pp. 454–8. 59. China Mail, 14 April 1882. 60. China Mail, 18 April 1882. 61. China Mail, 14 April 1882. Dechevrens’s praises were widely sung at Shanghai, e.g. the editor of the North China Daily News, 16 July 1883: ‘the thanks of the general public are due for the disinterested services of the distinguished meteorologist … who has undertaken to organize, without any prospect of remuneration, a General China Coast Service, with the indispensable co-operation of the I. M. Customs Service’. 62. North China Daily News, 4 April 1883. 63. Hong Kong Telegraph, 5 October 1883. 64. China Mail, 27 June 1882. 65. CO129/197, pp. 266–8.


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66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87.

88. 89. 90.


255

E.g. in the China Mail, 15 November 1887. CO129/199, p. 81. CO129/197, pp. 259–60. Described, for example, in Lowe and McLaughlin (1992), pp. 232–7. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 4 March 1882; with correction in the Gazette for 16 December 1882. W. Doberck, in Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year 1897, pp. 109–54. China Mail, 17 February 1882. CO129/198, pp. 52–4. CO129/198, p. 56. April 3 1882, F. Bulkeley Johnson to Secretary of State for the Colonies, in CO129/199, p. 81. 28 April 1882, in CO129/198, p. 66. Available in CO129/206, pp. 503–11. 22 May 1882, Price to Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, in CO129/206, p. 501. CO129/206, p. 499. 3 July 1882, in CO129/206, p. 126. 24 July 1882, from R. Lee, in CO129/206, p. 152. Harbour Master’s Report for 1881, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 15 April 1882. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 July 1882. CO129/206, p. 154. 天文台. Hong Kong Telegraph, 25 December 1883. Report of 16 December 1884 on the Finances of the Colony by the Colonial Secretary and Auditor General, in Hong Kong Sessional Papers, December 1884 to June 1885, No. 13, item 4. Eitel (1895), pp. 538–9. Ho (2003), p. 152. For Palmer post–Hong Kong see Higuchi (2002). In another biography (The Biography of Major-General Henry Spencer Palmer R.E. F.R.A.S. (1838–1893), Yokohama, 2002), Higuchi is mistaken in his assertion that Palmer’s ‘plan and the report accompanying it, were referred to the Kew Committee, of the Royal Society, who recommended the adoption without the alteration of a single item’.

Chapter 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

CO129/214, p. 706. CO129/205, p. 582. CO129/126, p. 545. For the remaining thirty years of his life Clarke published no further scientific work, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, March 1999, p. 23. Robert Herbert to Doberck, 29 January 1883. Nature, 27, 565, 1883. His appointment was also noted in The English Mechanic and World of Science, 20 April 1883, p. 148, as ‘astronomer and director of the new Hong Kong observatory’. For allegations of jobbery in selecting the master of the Mint, and in the appointment of the postmaster general see an editorial in the Hong Kong Daily Press, 29 September 1864.


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256

Notes to pages 57–68 8. Bickley (1997), p. 202. 9. Lethbridge in Introduction to Eitel (1983). 10. As the first Ph.D. holder in government Doberck is probably beaten out by a few years by the German Ernest Eitel, who became inspector of schools in 1879, and who held a doctorate in philosophy degree awarded by the University of Tübingen in 1870, for his Handbook for the Study of Chinese Buddhism. 11. Communication from Michael Doberck. 12. What little we do know about his early life is almost entirely due to an entry in Dansk biografisk Lexikon, volume 4, p. 285, which only takes us up to about 1890, and two short obituary notices, one in Nature, 147, 409, 1941 and one in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 53, 263–4, 1941. 13. Recorded in an obituary for John Louis Emil Dreyer. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 87, 251–7, 1927. 14. W. Doberck, Bahnbestimmung der Cometen I 1801, III 1840 und II 1869. InauguralDissertation … zu Jena, Copenhagen: Cohens Buchdrukerei, 1873. 15. T. R. Robinson, 1852, cited in Glass (1997), p. 42. 16. John F. Fitzsimons, Markree Castle Observatory — a Bygone Era in Irish Astronomy, 2nd edition, [Sligo] 1982. 17. W. Doberck, Markree Observatory, The Observatory, 7, 283–8, 1884; M. Hoskin, Archives of Dunsink and Markree Observatories, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 13, 146–52, 1982. 18. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 11, 104–5, 1851. 19. The Astronomical Register, 1, 157, 1863. 20. Obituary: Colonel Edward H. Cooper. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 63, 197–8, 1903. 21. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36, 171, 1876; 37, 173, 1877; 38, 183, 1878; 39, 251–2, 1879; 40, 226, 1880; 41, 206, 1881; 42, 164–5, 1882; 43, 197–9, 1883. 22. The Observatory, 7, 283–8 and 329–32, 1884. 23. Aitken (1918). 24. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 53, 263–4, 1941. 25. The English Mechanic and World of Science, 5 January 1877, p. 402. 26. Report of the Meteorological Committee of the Royal Society for the Year Ending 31st December 1875, London: H M Stationary Office, 1876, p. 21. 27. O’Rorke (1878), p. 544. 28. The Observatory, 2, 140–4, 1878. 29. In a letter to the Acting Colonial Secretary, 5 October 1885, in CO129/222. 30. J. L. E. Dreyer, Obituary for Albert Marth, 1828–97, Astronomische Nachrichten, 144, 223, 1897. 31. On this see, for example, Anderson (2005). 32. Griffiths and Lau (1986). 33. Fa-Ti Fan, Victorian Naturalists in China: Science and Informal Empire, British Journal for the History of Science, 36, 1–26, 2003. 34. CO129/214, p. 684. 35. HKRS356 1–1(1), #17. 36. 7 May 1883, Figg to Colonial Office, #47 in HKRS356 1–1(1). Invariably cited as Frederick, his correct name was Frederic, as he informed Doberck in a note of 11 May 1883, in HKRS356 1–1(1). 37. CO129/212, p. 261.


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38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.


257

Dyson (1983), p. 29. CO129/214, p. 691. 22 February 1883, in CO129/214. CO129/214, p. 707. Ibid. CO129/214, p. 706. 27 April 1883, R. H. Meade to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(1), [Robert H. Meade, assistant undersecretary at the Colonial Office 1871–92]. CO129/214, pp. 712–3. CO129/214, p. 710. Ibid. MacKeown (2007), p. 46. China Mail, 28 July 1883. China Mail, 30 July 1883. China Mail, 12 November 1883. China Mail, 8 October 1883. China Mail, 6 March 1884. CO129/206, p. 504. CO129/211, p. 135.

Chapter 4 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Quoted in China Mail, 11 March 1886. 22 November 1883, Bowen to the Colonial Office, CO129/212, p. 263. MacKeown (2007). 12 May 1866, MacDonnell to Cardwell, Principal Secretary of State at the Colonial Office, in PRO MINT13/201. CO129/212, p. 256. CO129/210, p. 483. HKRS356 1–1(1), #70. HKRS356 1–1(1), #78. Indexed as ‘Astronomer’s Report’ in the Hong Kong Government Gazette (Administrative Report No. 380), 17 November 1883. His failure to visit Manila seems to be confirmed by an item in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 15 May 1886 which lists all the meteorological stations in communication with the Observatory with those which he had visited so indicated. Manila is listed but not so indicated. In the Observatory files copies of each of the governor’s introductions to the consuls at Ningbo and Fuzhou, saying, among other things, that: ‘Dr Doberck will show you the instructions which he has received’ occur, with the annotation: ‘found in a sealed envelope evidently not presented by Dr Doberck’. At Zikawei, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 24 November 1883. 1 October 1883, Doberck to Manila Observatory, Saderra Masó (1915), p. 71. Hong Kong Telegraph, 20 March 1899. North China Daily News, 1 October 1883, reproduced in the Hong Kong Telegraph, 5 October 1883. HKRS356 1–1(1), #81. HKRS356 1–1(1), #108. Hong Kong Telegraph, 20 March 1899. Tyler (1929), pp. 136, 221.


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Notes to pages 79–88 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

44.

45.

Saderra Masó (1915), p. 72. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 22 April 1884. Eitel (1895), p. 529. CO129/212, p. 261. 1 May 1883, Robert Scott to Doberck, in HKRS356 1–1(1). CO129/212, p. 256. CO129/212, p. 263. Hong Kong Telegraph, 1 February 1890. Welsh (1993), p. 293. 13 December 1883, in CO129/213, p. 150. Endacott (1958). China Mail, 2 February 1886. China Mail, 15 September 1884. China Mail, 19 October 1887. Hong Kong Telegraph, 4 December 1883. MacKeown (2007), p. 55. In a notice in the Government Gazette, 10 January 1885, he mistakenly reported this as 17h instead of 05h, the same mistake made again twenty-three years later in a notice by Figg, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 16 April 1908. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 November 1884. With the widespread adoption of radio signalling, the time-ball eventually became redundant and was hoisted for the last time in 1933. Local astronomical calibration of clocks was no longer continued after the Second World War, signals arriving by radio being relied on. Letter to the editor, North China Daily News, 9 September 1884. Sir Thomas Stevenson, a British civil engineer and meteorologist, and father of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Thomas Romney Robinson, sometime director of Armagh Observatory. John Ball, MP for Carlow 1852–57, Hansard, vol. 134, p. 1006, 1854. A distinguished sea captain, on one of whose journeys on HMS Beagle the naturalist Charles Darwin was a passenger. He was also a sometime governor of New Zealand. At the Cardiff Naturalists’ Society, reported in the Western Mail, 28 January 1882. Sun-spots and Markree Rainfall, Nature, 26, 366–7, 1882. With rainfall in inches, a Least Squares analysis of the data yields a coefficient of 0.049±.021, a value almost significant at the three standard deviation level. He found the correct value for the estimate of the coefficient, but probably was not familiar with the method for evaluating its uncertainty. There would be very many such studies over the years, but it was not until the twenty-first century that a convincing, small, correlation was established. Gerald A. Meehl, Julie M. Arblaster, Katja Matthes, Fabrizio Sassi and Harry van Loon, Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing, Science, 325, 1114–8, 2009. The most used work was William Marriot’s Hints to Meteorological Observers with Instructions for Taking Observations and Tables for Their Reduction, London: Edward Stanford, 1881, which went into many editions. Robert H. Scott’s Instructions in the Use of Meteorological Instruments, London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1875, went into greater detail on apparatus and methods. The height of the mercury column which defines the pressure must be corrected for the thermal expansion of the mercury — it is usual to standardize it to 0ºC.


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46. Ahvenainen (1981), §1, §2. 47. Eitel (1895), p. 284. 48. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 16 August 1884; a detailed description of the storm warning system is given in Wai (2004, 2005). 49. China Mail, 28 August 1884. 50. China Mail, 11 September 1884; he gives details of the typhoon in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 27 September 1884. 51. China Mail, 12 September 1884. 52. China Mail, 13 September 1884. 53. China Mail, 20 September 1884. 54. 7 July 1884, Harbour Master to Doberck, in HKRS356 1–1(1). 55. 9 August 1884, Doberck to Colonial Secretary (unsigned draft), HKRS356 1–1(1), #111. 56. 23 August 1884, Ag. Colonial Secretary (Frederick Stewart) to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(1), #114. 57. 7 August 1884, Ag. Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(1), #110. 58. CO129/216, p. 50. 59. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 November 1884. 60. CO129/222, p. 399. 61. CO129/222, p. 396. 62. CO129/222, p. 390. 63. CO129/222, p. 387. 64. CO129/239, p. 189. 65. Price in CO129/206, p. 505. 66. CO129/239, p. 188. 67. CO129/239, p. 194. 68. China Mail, 27 August 1885. 69. China Mail, 14 April 1886. 70. HKRS356 1–1(2), #9. 71. CO129/226, p. 230. 72. HKRS356 1–1(2), #18. 73. 8 October 1890, Ag. Colonial Secretary (Deane) to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2). 74. Nature, 35, 229, 1886. 75. The Register (from 1894 only) and Observations (from 1884) are available at http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/data_rescue_china.html. The latter was titled Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory from 1884 to 1886 and 1892–1898; in the periods 1887–1891 and 1899–1903 it was known as Observations Made …, and from 1904 as Meteorological Observations Made … From 1884 to 1886 it was authored by W. Doberck, government astronomer, from 1887 to 1903 by W. Doberck, director, and thereafter anonymously. 76. Hong Kong Telegraph, 3 April 1890. 77. China Mail, 8 September 1886. 78. As reported in China Mail, 18 October 1886. 79. China Mail, 15 April 1886. 80. China Mail, 16 April 1886. 81. CO129/226, p. 226. 82. CO129/237, p. 375. 83. CO129/240, pp. 334–42.


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Notes to pages 104–115 84. This telescope, on loan from the astronomer royal, had a refractor with a highly regarded 5.9-inch lens by Tully, originally made for W. H. Smyth in his Bedford Observatory. Smyth sold it to Dr. John Lee of the Hartwell House Observatory. It is now in the Science Museum in London. A picture of it may be seen in King (1979), p. 159. 85. 8 January 1887, Acting Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2), #35. 86. For Frederick Stewart, see Bickley (1997). 87. Pope-Hennessy (1984), p. 207. 88. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 January 1887. 89. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 28 May 1887. 90. CO129/232, p. 408.

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25.

11 March 1886, Doberck to Acting Colonial Secretary, in CO129/252, p. 332. 21 October 1887, Frederick Stewart to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2). HKRS356 1–1(2), #69. HKRS356 1–1(2), #77. HKRS356 1–1(2), #70. O’Rorke (1889), Vol. II, p. 529. Tyler (1929), p. 147. ‘Veritas’ in China Mail, 16 October 1889. The English Mechanic and World of Science, 20 April 1888, p. 165. 7 February 1925, Doberck to R. G. Aitken, in the Lick Observatory archives. In the canonical histories he is recorded as transferring from ‘Government Astronomer’ to ‘Director’ in 1887, e.g. in Starbuck (1951), and in G. C. Hamilton, Government Departments in Hong Kong 1841–1969, Hong Kong Government Printer, 1969, p. 61, but this is erroneous. Hong Kong Telegraph, 5 October 1881. CO129/238, p. 296. CO129/241, p. 508. Saderra Masó (1915), p. 72. 12 June 1892, Chief Secretary to the Inspector General to Doberck, HKRS842 1/1. 5 June 1889, Doberck to Figg, HKRS356 1–1(2). 8 July 1889, Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2). Minutes of 10 July and 13 July 1889 in HKRS356 1–1(2). 16 August 1889, Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2). 12 February 1889, HKRS356 1–1(2), #101. Among the early chief clerks, appointed 2 June 1885 at $480/year (not listed in 1886) who did not see his future with the Observatory was Lau Chu Pak (1867– 1922) (劉鑄伯) who had studied at the Government Central School. He later became a wealthy tea merchant, co-founder of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and a Legislative Councillor. L. Starbuck, in J. E. Peacock (ed.), Hong Kong Meteorological Records and Climatological Notes 60 years 1884–1939, 1947–1950, Hong Kong: The Government Printer, 1952, p. 9. China Mail, 2 May 1890. China Mail, 15 October 1889.


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26. No record of this alleged correspondence is to be found, and Saderra Masó (1915), who would not be shy in embarrassing Doberck, makes no mention of it. 27. China Mail, 16 October 1889. 28. Catchick Paul Chater, a very successful Armenian businessman and Masonic leader, elected to the Legislative Council in 1887. He was later appointed the first unofficial member of the Executive Council. 29. Phineas Ryrie, member of a Scottish family active in the ‘China trade’. First chairman of the Jockey Club, he was chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at this time and its representative on the Legislative Council. 30. China Mail, 10 December 1889. 31. China Mail, 10 February 1890. 32. China Mail, 12 February 1890. 33. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 18 January 1890. 34. China Mail, 20 January 1890. 35. China Mail, 1 May 1890. 36. Japan Weekly Mail, 15 February 1890. 37. No sign of it is to be found in the archives. 38. Hong Kong Daily Press, 2 May 1890. 39. China Mail, 29 April, 1 and 15 May 1890. 40. China Mail, 1 May 1890. 41. China Mail, 15 May 1890. 42. 10 May 1890, Doberck to Acting Colonial Secretary, HKRS356 1–1(1). 43. 20 May 1890, Acting Colonial Secretary W. M. Deane to Acting Governor F. Fleming, HKRS365 1–1(1). 44. CO129/245, p. 486. 45. 10 October 1890, HKRS356 1–1(2), #198. 46. 16 April 1891, Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS842. 47. Thomas Kirkman Dealy, FRGS, was later headmaster at Queen’s College 1909–18. He wrote Notes on the Geography of the Chinese Empire, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1896, and revised Chalmer’s English and Cantonese Dictionary, 7th ed., Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1907. 48. China Mail, 12 February 1890. 49. China Mail, 13 June 1891. 50. Anderson (2005), p. 279. 51. Pyenson (1993), p. 161. 52. CO129/245, p. 230. 53. 18 April 1890, Acting Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS356 1–1(2). 54. 7 May 1890, Officer Administering the Government minute, HKRS356 1–1(2). 55. CO129/265, p. 677. 56. 5 December 1890, Doberck to Christie, in Papers of William Christie in RGO 7/161, 7/183, 7/241, cited in Appleton (2009). Lucas Christiaan Frederik Eduard Engelenburg at the time had mostly worked on geomagnetism, and had recently published, with E. Van Rijckevorsel, Magnetic Survey of the Eastern Part of Brazil, Amsterdam: Johannes Muller, 1890. He later rose to a high position in the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, Pyenson (1989), p. 97. 57. CO129/247, p. 378. 58. CO129/247, pp. 380–3. 59. The Observatory, 14, 287, 1891. 60. For more details on Plummer’s early career, see Appleton (2009).


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Notes to pages 127–133 61. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 35, 194–5, 1875; 36, 172–3, 1876; 37, 175–6, 1877; 38, 186, 1878; 39, 253, 1879; 40, 231–2, 1880; 41, 209–10, 1881; 42, 168, 1882; 44, 174, 1884; 45, 233–4, 1885; 47, 161, 1887; 48, 197, 1888; 49, 204–5, 1889; 50, 211, 1890. 62. Kronk (2003). 63. J. J. Plummer, On Some Results of Temperature Observations at Durham, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 1, 241–6 and 264–6, 1873. The assessment of their quality is due to Appleton (2009). During his stay at the Durham Observatory, 1867–74, he would have been in charge of routine monitoring of meteorological parameters, see G. D. Rochester, The History of Astronomy in the University of Durham from 1835 to 1939, Q. Jl. R. Astr. Soc., 21, 369–78, 1980. 64. China Mail, 1 May 1891. Accompanied by his wife, Marion (née Forsyth), son John and daughters Marion and Euphemia Beatrice. 65. China Mail, 13 June 1891. 66. For example in Catalogue of Right-Ascensions of 2120 Southern Stars for the Epoch 1900 from Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory during the Years 1898 to 1903, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1905, p. 75, we find ‘… Mr Plummer’s skill is well known and the smallness of the probable errors prove [sic] that the work was accurately done’. 67. Fritsche (1877), p. 188; the two adventurous ladies were a Miss Dsodbojeff and a Miss Mossin. 68. Treatise unspecified, but plausibly, Meteorological Researches, in three volumes (Washington: Government Printer, 1877–82) by the American theoretical meteorologist William Ferrel (1817–91). 69. Very likely, Grundzüge der Meteorologie, Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1883, by the Norwegian geophysicist Henrik Mohn (1835–1916). The theories of Ferrel and Mohn are well presented by Kutzbach in Kutzbach (1979). 70. CO129/252, p. 325. 71. CO129/252, p. 325r. 72. CO129/252, p. 328. 73. CO129/252, p. 327. 74. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 36, 171, 1876. 75. For example, he reports her work on the rainfall in Sligo in his 1884 paper, On the Rainfall and Temperature of Markree, Sligo, Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 10, 158–61, 1884. 76. O’Rorke (1878). 77. Noted in the Stockholm women’s magazine Dagny, 8, 271, 1892. 78. Joanne Malkus Simpson, at the University of Chicago. 79. Nature, 46, 108, 1892. 80. Draft of 9 March 1890, HKRS356 1–1(2). 81. 15 December 1913, Anna Doberck to Claxton, HKRS 842/4. In the ‘Ladies Directory’ of the annual Chronicle and Directory for China, Japan and the Philippines she is listed from 1896 as Miss Doberck BA. 82. 2 March 1900, Anna Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS 842/3.

Chapter 6 1. 2.

Colonial Office: Minutes of 17 July 1894, in CO129/263. 21 October 1891, HKRS842.


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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.


263

2 October 1891, HKRS842. Doberck to Christie, 4 November 1891, reported by Appleton (2009). China Mail, 29 December 1891. China Mail, 4 June 1892. Plummer (1910). 23 June 1891, in CO129/250, p. 219. Officer Administering the Government, May to December 1891. Hong Kong Hansard, 23 May 1892. 13 July 1892, Governor Robinson to Secretary of State, in CO129/255, pp. 572–94. 24 October 1892, Ripon to Governor Robinson, ibid. 羊角 — literally a sheep’s horn, presumably reflecting the helicity of the two phenomena. 颶風 — literally a wind from all quarters, a form recorded as early as 470 AD, and featuring in Tang poetry; see Kin-sheun Louie and Kam-biu Liu, Ancient Records of Typhoons in Chinese Historical Documents, in Murnane and Liu (2004), 223–48. The modern name for a typhoon is taifeng (颱風). Few words have had more etymological attention than the word ‘typhoon’, see, for example, H. Himly, Ursprung des Wortes Typhon und der aussprache Teifun, Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natür-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio, Vol. 1, Part 8, September, 1875; or the detailed investigation into the etymology of the modern English name by Gherzi (1951), vol. 1, 199–200. It is now generally accepted that the words used by the Arabs and the Portuguese, from which current English usage derives, are of Chinese origin. ‘G’ [=Gherzi?], ‘Meteorology’ in Samuel Couling (ed.) Encyclopaedia Sinica, Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1917. For example, J. C. L. Chan and J. E. Shi, Frequency of Typhoon Landfall over Guangdong Province of China during the Period 1470–1932, International Journal of Climatology, 20, 183–90, 2000; and K.-B. Liu, C. Shen and K. S. Louie, A 1000Year History of Typhoon Landfalls in Guangdong, Southern China, Reconstructed from Chinese Historical Documentary Records, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91, 453–64, 2001. 8 January 1969, Joseph Needham to G. J. Bell (director of the Royal Hong Kong Observatory), in Needham Research Institute archives, file NRI2/SCC6/13/1, where Needham dates the Nanyue Zhi to around 465. The text, with translation, is available in Ho (2003), pp. 58–9. Notably the account by Ma Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan, translated by J. V. G. Mills, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. The chronicles of Fr. Gaspar da Cruz, of which an English translation appeared in 1625, see Boxer (1953), pp. 223–4. Boxer (1951), pp. 408–9. Dampier (1703), pp. 413–6. A Seventeenth Memoir on the Law of Storms in India, Being Storms of the China Seas from 1842 to 1847, J. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 18, 1–45, 1849. Reid (1849) and Reid (1850). 1chi=10cun. His precise figure of 24cun for the standard value, which should correspond to 760mm, either reflects an easy-going attitude to the quantitative, not suggested elsewhere in his writing, or an ambiguity at the time in the accepted value of the cun. It implies a value of 31.7mm for the cun — not in agreement with the modern prescribed value of 33.3mm, or the traditional value used in Hong


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25. 26. 27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

Kong of 37.1mm. A commercial guide of the time stated that there were no less than eighty-four definitions for the chi. The Hai Guan, or Customs, chi was 14.1 inches, implying a value of 35.814 mm for the cun, again not in agreement with the value used by MacGowan. MacGowan (1853), fig. 6. Fritsche (1877), p. 294. Nature, 4, 435, 1871. In Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natür-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio, Vol. 1, Part 6, pp. 11–3, December, 1874. The author is most likely M. von Brandt, a regular early contributor to the journal. Details of typhoons from 1872, but without any tracks, were given by a Lt. Commander Nelson in Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan, 1, 52–85, 1873. E. Knipping, The September Taifuns 1878, Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natür-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio, Vol. 2, Part 18, pp. 333–6, September, 1879; The Great Taifun of August 1880, Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natür-und Völkerkunde Ostasiens in Tokio, Vol. 3, Part 23, pp. 90–102 and 166–70, 1882. Both articles are written in English in deference to the English-speaking captains who had provided most of the data. T. C. Mendenhall, Report on the Meteorology of Tokio for the Year 2540 (1880), Memoirs of the Science Department Tokio Daigaku, No. 7, Tokyo, 1881. Le Typhon du 31 Juillet 1879, Shanghai: Zikawei Observatory, 1879. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 31 May 1884, 27 September 1884, 16 May 1885 and 18 July 1885. The Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas, pp. 24+map, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Telegraph, 1886; reproduced in Nature, 35, 135–41, 1886. Über das Gesetz der Stürme in den ostasiatischen Gewässern, Vienna: 1891. P. Bergholz, Die Taifune in den ostasiatischen Gewässern, nach Doberck, E. Hölzel, 1898; also in Meteorolog. Z., 15, 332–41, 1898. Results of further investigations concerning typhoons, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 7 January 1888. He seems to have been fully familiar with the then existing, somewhat incomplete, theories of the phenomenon. Elsewhere he invoked a role also for the heat liberated at a height by condensation, and for the friction between the wind and the sea surface, in the development of the storm; see his report on the typhoons of 1884 and 1885, Appendix B of Observations and Researches Made at the Hongkong Observatory in the Year 1886. 6 February 1897, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, in HKRS842 1/4. W. Doberck, Die Zugstrassen der Teifune, Meteorolog. Z., 14, 101–2, 1897. 5 April 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, in HKRS842. Gherzi (1951), p. 267. Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 17 January 1896, reproduced in the Hong Kong Daily Press on 27 February. Bergholz (1901). José Algué, Baguios ó Ciclones Filipinos — Estudio Téorico-practicó, Manila, 1897. Algué, in his second (revised) edition, Cyclones of the Far East, published in English in Manila in 1904, is not overly critical of Bergholz’s appropriation of the first edition of the book, but notes that Scott’s revision of the English translation thereof contains numerous scientific inaccuracies and ‘a number of passages of sheer nonsense’.


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46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69.

70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75.

76. 77. 78. 79. 80.


265

Algué (1904), p. 24. Newnham (1922). Monthly Weather Review, 27, 108–9, 1899. Coching Chu, A New Classification of Typhoons of the Far East, Monthly Weather Review, 52, 570–9, 1924. Coching Chu, The Place of Origin and Recurvature of Typhoons, Monthly Weather Review, 53, 1–5, 1925. Jeffries and Heywood (1938). Hong and Liu (2006), §11. Hong Kong Hansard, 24 July 1891. China Mail, 2 July 1892. China Mail, 6 July 1892. China Mail, 11 July 1892. China Mail, 22 July 1892. China Mail, 5 November 1892. China Mail, 29 November 1892. Hong Kong Telegraph, 5 September 1893. Hong Kong Hansard, 21 November 1892. For example, a letter in China Mail, 17 April 1894. Hong Kong Telegraph, 30 September 1893. China Mail, 20 December 1893. China Mail, 9 October 1893. China Mail, 11 October 1889. China Mail, 15 November 1887. China Mail, 11 September 1894. A familiarity with the mechanics of the tides, and a role for the moon in the phenomenon, were among the more sophisticated developments in meteorology in Chinese thought, and tide tables had been constructed from as early as the eighth century, see Needham (1959), §21(i). Ryder to Governor, 30 October 1877, Hong Kong Government Gazette, 17 November 1877. In principle, for 369 days for an acceptable level of accuracy; for a more exact specification a period of 235 lunar months, almost nineteen years, is required. Later, Sir Osbert Chadwick, a civil engineer frequently consulted by the Colonial Office on overseas projects, later professor of municipal engineering at University College London. Osbert Chadwick to the Crown Agents, 7 September 1882, HKRS356 1–1(1). Osbert Chadwick to the Colonial Office, 6 April 1883, HKRS356 1–1(1); the Colonial Office copy is in CO129/214, pp. 647–9. The data for 1887 and 1888 are in Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 25 October 1890, while the data for 1889 are in W. Doberck, Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year 1892, pp. 109–20. From 1893, by virtue of his official position he was a justice of the peace, and presumably attended such occasions as would be called for by this appointment. 29 July 1891, Plummer to Doberck, HKRS842. Akers-Jones (2004), p. 12. China Mail, 3 July 1882. China Mail, 16 March 1894.


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Notes to pages 159–169 81. Des Voeux (1903); Sir Mathew Nathan, Diaries and Letters 1904–07, Oxford: Bodlean Library; for Bowen, see Lane-Poole (1899). 82. Tyler (1929), p. 147. 83. 12:00 hours standard time was synchronized with 11:36:42 local time on Sunday 30 October 1904. It is not clear whether the observations reported in the China Coast Meteorological Register are additional measurements made on the hour, or the usual observations made 23 minutes past the hour, most likely the latter. 84. Pyenson (1993), p. 161. 85. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 January 1898. 86. Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., 29, 379–426, 1890. The order, l’Ordre du Dragon de l’Annam, was established by the emperor of Annam, which was already a French Protectorate, in March 1886. At the time of Doberck’s award, and until 1896, it was considered in France a ‘foreign decoration’, but in that year was adopted as a French colonial decoration, awarded for services in the facilitation of colonial expansion. 87. Dated 1 November 1892, HKRS842. 88. 25 April 1894, HKRS842. 89. 27 April 1894, Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS842. 90. CO129/265, p. 677. 91. CO129/260, p. 7. 92. CO129/278, p. 38. 93. China Mail, 19 April 1894. 94. China Mail, 25 September 1894. 95. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 13 October 1894. 96. Definitive Elements of the Orbit of Comet 1824 I, Astronomische Nachrichten, 138, 321–32, 1895. 97. CO129/263, p. 395. 98. CO129/263, p. 393. 98. CO129/265, p. 674. 100. CO129/265, p. 275. 101. Entry for 3 October 1894, working journal of William Christie, Royal Greenwich Observatory archives. 102. Her father’s name is given as Obenchain, so it is likely that she had been married before. 103. 28 December 1894, Colonial Secretary to Doberck, HKRS842. 104. 12 January 1895, Doberck to the Astronomer Royal, HKRS842 1/4. 105. Available in CO129/278, pp. 32–40. 106. 3 October 1894, Plummer to the Acting Colonial Secretary, HKRS842 1/1. 107. CO129/278, p. 41. 108. Plummer to the Colonial Secretary, 2 June 1897, HKRS842. 109. CO129/276, pp. 191–5 and CO129/280, p. 490. 110. CO129/278, p. 28. 111. CO129/278, p. 524. 112. CO129/260, p. 12. 113. 9 April 1897, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842 1/4. 114. CO129/276, p. 188. 115. CO129/278, p. 508. 116. CO129/278, p. 507. 117. Telegraphic Code Used for Issuing Storm-Warnings from the Hongkong Observatory prepared by F. G. Figg, first assistant, 22 pp., Hong Kong: Noronha & Co.,1898, available in CO129/281, p. 163.


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118. China Mail, 3 August 1895. 119. Supplement to Hong Kong Government Gazette, 19 September 1896, pp. 1–71. 120. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 56, 242–3, 1896. 121. W. Doberck, On the Latitude of Hong Kong, Observations and Researches Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in 1897, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co., 1898, pp. 109–54. 122. Apparently a consensus was arrived at later, on the basis of these observations, that the latitude was 22°18´13.2Ń. 123. Astronomers at the time usually quoted the so-called probable error, defined as 0.674 times the standard deviation on the mean. 124. The concept of latitude is more complicated than initial familiarity might suggest, even for an assumed spherical earth. Astrometrically measured latitude is determined from measurements of stars at the zenith with respect to the equatorial plane, the plane normal to the earth’s rotation axis. This axis, however, is not fixed in space, it wobbles a little (and on a long time scale precesses) so that the latitude of a place defined in this way will change with time.

Chapter 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

5 June 1899, copied by Willis L. Moore to Doberck, HKRS842. Sydney B. J. Skertchly, in The Hong Kong Weekly Press and China Overland Trade Report, 23 January 1893. China Mail, 17 January 1893. China Mail, 12 October 1896. 20 November 1896, Dechevrens to Colonial Secretary, HKRS842. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 29 August 1896, pp. 877–8. 31 January 1898, Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS 842/3. There are conflicting reports on the break in the line to Manila. The United States declared war on Spain in April 1898, but according to Headrick (1981), p. 83, failed in an effort to cut the newly laid cable in Manila Bay. They then appealed to the British authorities in Hong Kong who ordered, despite declared neutrality in the dispute, the Eastern Extension Telegraph Co. to seal off the Hong Kong end of the cable; it was restored on 22 August. According to Ahvenainen (1981), p. 165 the U.S. navy cut the Eastern Extension cable, but came to regret it, and asked the company to reestablish it, which they refused to do, arguing that their contract with the Spanish government excluded actions unfriendly to that government. 23 November 1898, Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS842. China Mail, 17 March 1899; Fr. Algué had also sent a copy of his letter to the Shanghai newspapers. In its early days, before it had official status the Observatory was known as ‘Observatorio del Ateneo Municipal’. 5 November 1898, Doberck to Dr. Moore of the U.S. Weather Bureau, HKRS842. Hong Kong Telegraph, 20 March 1899. China Mail, 21 March 1899. Hong Kong Daily Press, 28 March 1899. Reference 1 above. 24 March 1899, Fr. Louis Froc to Sir Henry Blake, HKRS842. 17 March 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842. 28 March 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842/3. 28 April 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842/3.


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Notes to pages 178–195 21. Suggesting they were reading the barometer accurate to 1mm, and he was asking for readings accurate to 1/4 mm. It may be, to economize on message size, that values were transmitted to this accuracy, but Zikawei, and presumably Manila, were recording pressure ostensibly accurate to 1/100 mm, but anyway accurate to 1/20 mm. Knipping at Tokyo used inches. The Hong Kong Observatory only started to use metric units from 1916. 22. 5 April 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842. 23. 9 May 1899, Colonial Secretary to the Governor, HKRS842. 24. Undated draft by the Colonial Secretary, May 1899, HKRS842. 25. 5 April 1899, Doberck to the Colonial Secretary, HKRS842. 26. Udias (2003). 27. Sheets and Williams (2001), p. 47. 28. Reference 1 above. 29. Monthly Weather Review, 27, 60–1, 1899. 30. 27 September 1899, U.S. Consul General to Colonial Secretary, HKRS 842/3. 31. 28 September 1899, Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS 842/3. 32. 18 October 1901, Consul M. Kato to Doberck, HKRS 842/4. 33. 19 October 1901, Doberck to Japanese Consul HKRS 842/4. 34. Report of the Director of the Philippines Weather Bureau for 1902. 35. Hong Kong Government Gazette, 27 February 1897. Our account here draws, in part, on the articles by Wai (2004, 2005). 36. China Mail, 8 and 13 January 1898. 37. Revd. Beaurepaire S.J., in the North China Herald, 4 December 1899. 38. China Mail, 10 May 1892. 39. All the correspondence in Hong Kong Telegraph, 2 September and 7 October 1902. 40. Hong Kong Telegraph, 19 July 1902. 41. 5 September 1902, Figg to Colonial Secretary, in HKRS 842. 42. China Mail, 27 September 1902. 43. Hong Kong Telegraph, 30 January 1903. 44. Announced in the Acting Director’s Annual Report for 1903. 45. Hong Kong Hansard, 17 September and 1 October 1903. 46. Approved by the Acting Colonial Secretary, 18 December 1893, HKRS 1–2(1). 47. Notified in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 22 December 1905, with a correction in the 29 December issue. 48. South China Morning Post, 23 May 1906. 49. E. Osborne in the Legislative Council, 3 October, 1907. The population of the Colony, including the New Territories at the time of the 1906 census was only slightly more than 400 000. 50. China Mail, 18 September 1906. 51. Manager of the P&O Line, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce 1903–15. 52. Robert E. Brown, The Hong Kong Typhoon and the Jesuit Observatories, The Month, 8, 561–70, 1906. 53. South China Morning Post, 1 October and 3 October 1906. 54. Hong Kong Daily Press, 26 September 1906. 55. Supplement to the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 22 March 1907, pp. 42–98. 56. China Mail, 25 March 1907. 57. ‘Anxious’ in China Mail, 27 March 1907. 58. South China Morning Post, 26 September 1906. 59. South China Morning Post, 25 March 1907.


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60. In CO129/335. 61. Jose Algué, in Department of the Interior Weather Bureau Manila Central Observatory, Bulletin for September 1906, Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1907, pp. 235–45. The essentials of this report were carried in the South China Morning Post on 15 October 1906. 62. Hong Kong Legislative Council Sessional Papers, No. 33/1907, 1907. 63. Observatoire de Zikawei Bulletin des Observations, Part B (Meteorology), 32, 21–2, 1909. 64. Hong Kong Daily Press, 8 August 1907. 65. Saderra Masó (1915), p. 164. 66. South China Morning Post, 3 October 1906. 67. Meteorological Observations Made at the Hong Kong Observatory in the Year 1906, Hong Kong: Noronha & Co, 1907, plate I. 68. L. Starbuck, A Statistical Survey of Typhoons and Tropical Depressions in the Western Pacific and China Sea Area from Observations and Tracks Recorded at the Royal Observatory Hong Kong from 1884 to 1947, Hong Kong: Government Printers, 1951. 69. Chin (1958). 70. Reference 58 above. 71. Udias (2003), p. 163, states: ‘Doberck, … motivated by his animosity against the Jesuits, prevented the publication in the Colony of the forecast of a typhoon made by Froc [director of the Zikawei Observatory] two days in advance, with the result of the loss of many lives and ships’. 72. North China Daily News, 29 July 1907. 73. The undated [February 1907] report is in HKRS356 1–1(2), and the new scheme promulgated in the Hong Kong Government Gazette, 31 May 1907. 74. 4 March 1907, Nathan to Secretary of State for the Colonies, in CO129/339, p. 345. 75. Undated [January] minute in HKRS356 1–2(1). 76. A minute by the Acting Governor May, 15 January 1907, HKRS356 1–2(1). 77. Saderra Masó (1915), p. 164. 78. Available at Hong Kong Public Records Office, www.grs.gov.hk/PRO/srch/english/ sys_carlsmith.jsp?language=english. 79. Doberck was still described as director in the storm warning signals published in the Gazette on 31 May, although Figg was so described in an identical notice there on 26 July. 80. Plummer (1910). 81. Hong Kong Telegraph, 22 March 1910. 82. Plummer obituary in Hong Kong Daily Press, 9 February 1925. 83. See for example Kutzbach (1979). 84. Plummer (1910), p. 25. 85. The following is based, in part, on P. Kevin MacKeown, A Note on an Early Female Meteorologist: Miss Anna Doberck, Int. J. Meteorology UK, 33, 334–9, 2008. 86. Among such are, Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, Women Astronomers in Britain, 1780–1930, Isis, 75, 534–46, 1984, and Ogilvie (1986). For women in astronomy in the United States, see Lankford (1997). 87. P. Sham, Centenary of the Royal Observatory Hong Kong, WMO Bulletin, 32, 313–6, 1983. 88. CO129/273, p. 192. 89. CO129/273, p. 191. 90. CO129/273, p. 193.


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Notes to pages 202–220 91. CO129/275, p. 100. 92. 1 March 1893, Commander-in Chief China to Doberck, HKRS842 1/1. Some logs, however, would eventually be received from navy ships, as noted in the annual reports from the Observatory. 93. For example, Chin (1958). 94. 1 July 1902, Anna Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS842 1/4. 95. 18 January 1906, Anna Doberck to Sir Matthew Nathan, in Nathan, Bodlean Archives. 96. 5 April 1907, Anna Doberck to Sir Matthew Nathan, in Nathan, Bodlean Archives. 97. South China Morning Post, 16 October 1904. 98. Hoe (1991), §17, and personal communication. 99. Mary Kingsley, quoted in Hoe (1991). 100. Welsh (1993), p. 343.

Chapter 8 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

China Mail, 25 July 1907. CO129/339, p. 348. CO129/339, p. 345. CO129/339, p. 351. Monthly Weather Review, 27, 98–9, 1899. Hong Kong Hansard, 17 September 1907 and 24 September 1908. Hong Kong Hansard, 1 April 1909. Reported in the China Mail, 1 April 1907. China Mail, 8 August 1907. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1913, Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, 1913, pp. E1–E11; Froc also visited the Observatory in 1914. China Mail, 30 July 1907. China Mail, 25 July 1907. Hong Kong Hansard, 9 October 1921. Hong Kong Hansard, 7 October 1909. Hong Kong Telegraph, 6 May 1910. CO129/370, p. 53. CO129/370, p. 49. 20 November 1911, F. W. Dyson to Claxton, HKRS 842/4. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1911 (F. G. Figg), Administrative Reports, 1911, pp. E1–E12. CO129/381, p. 378. Ibid., p. 380. Kutzbach (1979), p. 8. Jill Austin, A Forgotten Meteorological Instrument — The Rainband Spectroscope, Weather, 36, 151–4, 1981. Report of the Director of the Hong Kong Observatory for the Year 1906, Hong Kong Government Gazette, Supplement, 26 April 1907. Pyenson (1989). Trans. China Branch Roy. Asiatic Soc., part III, p. 116, 1853. Burton (1997), p. 61. Griffiths and Lau (1986).


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29. The incumbent, who transferred to the newly designated position, was one Wan Suit Ngam. He had been with the Observatory since January 1890, and, working his way up from telegraphist, served there for more than thirty-three years. He retired, as a third grade computer, at the end of January 1923. Later the position of assistant was designated as scientific officer, and in 1949 the first Chinese were appointed as assistant scientific officers. One of them, Chin Ping Chuen was promoted to scientific officer in 1954 and worked there until retirement. 30. Before he came to Hong Kong, he had a good opinion of at least one Jesuit, writing: ‘the highly merited Jesuit, Christian Mayer, of the observatory at Mannheim’, in Nature, 26, 418–9, 1882. 31. O’Rorke (1878). 32. O’Rorke (1889), Vol. II, p. 529. 33. Science, 35, 448, 1912. 34. Hong Kong Hansard, 19 October 1911. 35. Plummer’s wife, Marion, had died at their home in Kowloon on 14 October 1900; China Mail, 18 October 1900. 36. Appleton (2009). 37. Plummer obituaries in Hong Kong Telegraph, 7 February 1925, Hong Kong Daily Press, 9 February 1925, South China Morning Post, 9 February 1925. 38. 1 July 1902, Anna Doberck to Colonial Secretary, HKRS 842/4. 39. Report from the Director of the Observatory for 1911, Hong Kong Government Administrative Reports, 1911, pp. E1–E12. 40. CO129/421, p. 65. 41. CO129/421, p. 69. 42. CO129/442, p. 54. 43. Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 58, 181, 1932. 44. W. Doberck, Dr. Doberck’s Observatory, Sutton, Surrey, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 69, 281–2, 1909. 45. Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc., 69, 1, 1908. 46. For a more detailed account of Doberck’s work in astronomy see the author’s William Doberck — Double Star Astronomer, J. Astron. History and Heritage, 10, 49–64, 2007. 47. 28 December 1922, Doberck to R. G. Aitken, in Lick Observatory Archives. 48. Aitken (1918), p. 240. 49. W. Doberck, On the Orbit of τ Ophiuchi, Astronomische Nachrichten, 170, 101, 1906. 50. W. Doberck, On the Orbit of xi Bootis, Astronomische Nachrichten, 214, 89–98, 1921. 51. W.D. Heintz, The Castor System, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 100, 834–8, 1988. 52. J. Dommanget, The Mass/Eccentricity Limit in Double Star Astronomy, Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 24, 99–109, 2003. 53. Obituary: Dr. William Doberck, Nature, 147, 409, 1941. 54. R. G. Aitken, Obituary, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 53, 263–4, 1941. 55. W. Doberck, Markree Observatory, The Observatory, 7, 329–32, 1884.


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Ahvenainen, Jorma, The Far Eastern Telegraphs, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1981. Aitken, R. G., The Binary Stars, New York: Douglas C. McMurtrie, 1918. Akers-Jones, David, Feeling the Stones: Reminiscences by David Akers-Jones, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004. Algué, José, The Cyclones of the Far East, 2nd revised ed., Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, 1904. Anderson, Katharine, Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Appleton, James, Stars and Storms — The Life and Work of John Isaac Plummer, Victorian Astronomer and Meteorologist, [Ipswich], 2009. Bergholz, Paul, Die Orkane des fernen Ostens, Bremen: 1899, translated into English and revised by Robert H. Scott, The Hurricanes of the Far East, Bremen & Shanghai: Max Nössler, 1901. Bernad, Miguel A., Unusual and Ordinary — Biographical Sketches of Some Philippine Jesuits, Quezon City: Jesuit Communications Foundation Inc., 2006. Bernard, W. D., The Nemesis in China: Comprising a History of the Late War in That Country, with an Account of the Colony of Hong-Kong / From Notes of Captain W. H. Hall, and Personal Observations by W. D. Bernard, 3rd ed., c. 1847; republished New York: Praeger, 1969. Bickley, Gillian, The Golden Needle — The Biography of Frederick Steward (1836–1889), Hong Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, 1997. Boxer, C. R., The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951. Boxer, C. R. (editor), Gaspar da Cruz, O.P., [and] Fr. Martin de Rada, O.E.S.A. (1550–1575), London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1953. Bresnihan, Jeanette, The Governorship of John Pope Hennessy, 1877–82: Reform and Foreign Policy (unpublished M.Phil. thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1990). Burton, Jim, Nineteenth Century Meteorological Observatories of the British Army in Joan M. Kenworthy and J. Malcolm Walker (editors), Colonial Observatories and Observations: Meteorology and Geophysics, Durham: Durham University Department of Geography, 1997.

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Index

Abbe, Cleveland 148, 180 Acapulco 136 Afghanistan 80 Airy, Sir George Biddell 219, 224 Aitken, R. G. 62, 227 Alarakia, Mahomed 85, 112, 124, 125 Algalega 16 Algué, José 18, 24, 104, 148, 149, 175, 180, 195, 197, 209, n.45p.264, n.10p.267 American Association for the Advancement of Science 171 American Meteorological Society 148 Amiot, Jean-Joseph 5 Amoy (Xiamen) 13, 75, 76 Andersen, Hans Christian 57 Anping 145 Armagh Observatory 59, 60, 61, 130, n.39p.258 Asiatic Society of Bengal 217 Astronomer Royal 12, 28, 40, 49, 51, 52, 53, 56, 65, 70, 81, 97, 103, 104, 108, 126, 134, 155, 161, 162, 164, 165, 195, 197, 207, 210, 211, 219, n.84p.260 for Hong Kong 108, 224 of Ireland 56, 63, 97 of Scotland 14, 214 Astronomy 4, 10, 14, 58, 60, 127, 216, 224 at Hong Kong 2, 36, 57, 63, 79, 103, 107, 108, 109, 121, 144, 169– 171, 173, 212, 217, 220

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at Manila 17, 103 at Zikawei 20, 104 Ateneo (Manila) 17, n.11p.267 Aurora Borealis 12 Bain, George Murray 35 Balingtan Channel 196, 211 Ball, John n.40p.258 Ball, Robert S. 56, 63, 73, 130 Bangkok 11, 13 Barbados 36, 40 Barcelona, University of 180 Barker, James C. 117 Batanes Islands 196, 211 Batavia 3, 13 Observatory 21, 31, 216, 221 Beale, Thomas 8, 9, 23, n.25p.250 Bell, Gordon J. xiv Bengal 14, 65, 218 Bay of 109, 137 Bergholz, Paul 144, 148, n.45p.264 Bergsma, Pieter Adriaan 21 Berkeley, Sir Henry 191 Bermuda 126 Blackhead’s Hill 187, 189, 198 Blake, Sir Henry A. 175, 184, 198, 222 Blanford, Henry F. 14, 32, 65, 218 Blettermann 8, 9 Bo Wu Tong Shu 5 Bolinao 33, 79, 117, 145, 175 Bombay Geographical Society 217 Borius, Alfred-Emile 20–21 Borneo 30

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280

Index Bowdler, Edward 36, 39, 46, 47, 48, 155 Bowen, Sir George F. 68, 69, 73, 75, 80, 82, 83, 84, 97, 98, 99, 128, 158, 159 opinion of Doberck 81, 97 opinion of Eitel 83 Bowring, J. C. 6 Breaker Point 91 Bremen Meteorological Office 144 Brisbane, Sir T. M. 163 British Army Medical Department 22, 23 British Association for the Advancement of Science 217 British Mercantile Marine Officers’ Association 154, 158 British Meteorological Office 18, 43, 62, 64, 65, 87, 148, 179 British Royal Engineers 22, 36, 67, 117, 219 Brussels 87 Bulletin Menseuls 42 Bulletin Météorologique 19 Bulletin of the Philippines Weather Bureau 148 Bullock, Charles 18, n.53p.251 Burnham, S. W. 62 Burton, Jim 219 Buys Ballot, C. H. D. 126 Caesar (USN) 196 Calcutta 65, 109, 137, 203, 218 Cameron, N. G. 105 Campbell J. D. 12–14 Canton 3, 8, 9, 11, 23, 41, 48, 89, 145, 194, 211, 215, n.24p.250 Canton Register 8, 9 Cap Syng-moon n.20p.250 Cape d’Aguilar 23, 85, 156 Cape of Good Hope Observatory 208 Cape St. Jacques 89 Capiz 175 Caribbean 25 Caroline Islands 188 Cebu 142 Celebes 18, 179, n.52p.251 Chadwick, Osbert 156, 157, n.72p.265 Chamber’s Introduction to Science n.20p.250


Chandler’s correction 47, 172 Chapel Island 91 Chater, Catchik Paul 116, n.28p.261 Chefoo (Yantai) 15, 183 Chevalier, Stanislas 20, 104, 149, 155 Chin Ping Chuen 196, n.29p.271 China 1–5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 25, 29, 31, 33, 37, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 64, 71, 74, 75, 77, 81, 88, 89, 111, 133, 136, 137, 139, 142, 146, 149, 174, 177, 180, 203, n.17p.249 China Coast 2, 5, 9, 20, 29, 31, 33, 41, 42, 46, 64, 77, 113, 137, 140, 142, 146, 157, 159, 185, 216, 225 China Coast Meteorological Register 23, 33, 42, 46, 71, 89, 100, n.83p.266 China Mail 27, 29, 35, 36, 37, 41, 44, 46, 47, 48, 71, 84, 93, 94, 100, 102, 108, 114, 116, 117, 119, 123, 124, 129, 134, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 161, 162, 163, 170, 174, 175, 177, 182, 186, 190, 199, 210, 211, 219 China Sea 1, 6, 7, 11, 25, 32, 37, 43, 75, 92, 136–138, 140, 141, 142, 145, 146, 148, 149, 213, 224, n.18p.250 Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs 8, 9, 12–15, 19, 33, 42, 43, 44, 73, 75, 76, 77, 89, 113, 182, 183, 184, 188, n.17p.249 Chinese Imperial Telegraphic Administration 89 Chinese Repository 8 Chinese Scientific and Industrial Magazine — see Gezhi huibian Chinkiang (Zhenjiang) 76 Christie, William. H. M. 51, 56, 126, 134, 164, 195, 224, 226 Chu Coching — see Zhu Kezhen Clarke, Colonel A. R. 40, 47, 56, n.4p.255 Claxton, Thomas Folkes 53, 132, 211, 212, 213, 225 Climate, and illness 22, 102, 219

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Cobbold, R. F. 170 Colina, Francisco 17 College Vaugirard (Paris) 19 Collooney 56, 60, 82, 222 Colombel, A. 19 Colonial Observatories 16, 21, 29 Colonial Office 13, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 98, 99, 102, 103, 105, 106, 110, 115, 116, 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 133, 157, 158, 161, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 177, 180, 201, 205, 207, 211, 212, 216, 225, n.72p.256 Columbkill 179 Colville, Lord 127 Cooper, Edward H. 61 Cooper, Edward Synge 60, 61, 63 Copeland, Ralph 14 Copenhagen 57, 58, 59, 83, 129, 131, 132, 163, 171, 225 Coriolis effect 144, 149, 200 Cunningham, James 3 Cyprus 35, 155 da Carvalho, J. A. 79 Dampier, William 137 d’Arrest, Heinrich L. 58, 59 Dealy, Thomas Kirkman 124, n.47p.261 Deane, Walter M. 117 Dechevrens, Marc 19, 20, 38, 42, 44, 45, 46, 66, 74–77, 85, 111, 140, 143, 174, 203, 214, n.61p.254 early typhoon studies 19, 20, 42, 46, 140, 142, 143 proposal for a General China Meteorological Service 42–45 relations with Doberck 44, 74, 76, 77, 111, 174 Deep Bay 194 de Guignes, C.-L.-J. 9 Dejima Island 21 De La Rue, Warren 27, 32, 36, 37, 53 de Moidry, Joseph 160 Derby, Lord 56, 69, 82, 83, 96


Index

281

de Salles, Eliza 67, 71, 80, 84, 222 Des Voeux, Sir William, 84, 103, 110, 117, 159 Diego Garcia 16 Digby Barker, Major-General 134 Doberck, Anna 57, 126, 165, 167, 168, 204–205, 225, 227, n.81p.262 appointment to Hong Kong 56, 60, 129–131 early career 131–132 in Ireland 63, 131 Observatory duties 160, 172, 173, 201–203, 224–225 retirement 225 social life in Hong Kong 204–205 Doberck, August William 2, 15, 20, 40, 47, 57, 64, 76, 110, 113, 123, 125, 134, 148, 156, 158, 160, 162, 166, 168, 181, 185, 215, 217, 221 and absence from duty 111–112 appointment as director 56–57 arrival in Hong Kong 70 and astronomy in Hong Kong 52, 67, 103, 104, 108, 115, 134, 169–171, 173, 220 background, early life and studies 57–59, 83 and censored Annual Reports 104– 106, 110 and clock calibration 96 and comets 59, 62, 108, 127, 227 conflict with authorities 67–70, 74, 76, 80–82, 93–94, 99, 104–108, 111–112, 114, 125, 163–166, 198 and double stars 62, 71, 101, 105, 108, 120, 122, 170, 171, 227, 228 and geomagnetic monitoring 102–103, 109 his legacy at Hong Kong 207, 214 hostility to Manila Observatory 76, 78, 94, 101, 175–180, 181, 192, 222 hostility to Zikawei Observatory 44, 74, 76, 77, 101, 120, 177–181, 183–184, 195, 222

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282

Index and hygrometry 62, 113, 225 and junior Observatory staff 82, 85, 110, 112, 123, 159, 160, 172, 220, 221 at Markree Observatory 59–63 marriage 164 and meteorology (see also ‘and typhoon studies’) 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 86, 88, 113, 203 naturalization 79 post retirement 223–224, 225–228 private practice 96 relations with Robert Hart 78, 111 retirement 197–198 salary concerns 51, 70, 95, 96–98, 116 social life 84, 158, 205, n.76p.265 and typhoon studies (see also Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas) 20, 79, 135, 144–146, n.37p.264 and variable stars 62, 227 Doberck, Carl Alfred 57 Doberck, Frederik Wilhelm 57 Doberck, Harriet Elizabeth (née Harris) 164 Doberck, Marthe Steine (née Johansen) 57 Doberck, Vargur 57 Donegal 83 Donovan, Major-General 36 Doyle, P. 109–110 Dreyer, John Louis Emile 59, 60, 63, 130 Dublin 16, 31, 56, 61 Dunsink Observatory 56, 61, 63, 130 Durham Observatory 126, 127, 129, n.63p.262 Durham University 126 Dyson, Anthony 53, 68 Dyson, Frank Watson 211 East India Company 137 Eastern Extension Australasia & China Telegraphic Company 33, 89, n.8p.267 Eça da Silva, J. B. 112, 125 Ede, Nathaniel J, 117 Edinburg University 14


Eitel, Ernst Johann 22, 24, 34, 53, 54, 57, 79, 83, 84, 91, 158, 199, n.10p.256 Endacott, G. B. 84, 199 Engelenburg, C. E. 126, n.56p.261 England 13, 18, 28, 54, 55, 69, 118, 121, 126, 179, 182, 183, 223, 226 Evans, Franklen 88 Falconer & Co. (Hong Kong) 28, 71, 93, 94, 100 Faura, Federico 17, 18, 19, 33, 38, 66, 73, 76, 79, 111, 141, 179, 180, 194, 198 early typhoon studies 18, 111, 141– 142, 194 Female meteorologists 129, 131, 132, 201, 221, 225, n.67p.262 Ferrel, William 130, n.68p.262, n.69p.262 Figg, Ester (née Kirkman) 67 Figg, Frances Maria (née Cole) 133 Figg, Frederic George, 2, 123, 126, 154, 160, 161, 162, 163–166, 167, 168–172, 173, 174, 181, 187, 188, 191–192, 196, 208–212, 221, 223, 224, 225, n.36p.256, n.34p.258, n.79p.269 acting director 161, 167, 184, 185, 199, 203 appointment 67 arrival at Hong Kong 70–71 director 199, 204, 207–209 early life 66–67 illness 111, 112, 116, 118, 120, 124 marriage 133 retirement 211, 223 role in the Observatory 160, 168–169, 174, 184–186 Figg, William 67 Fisher Island 76, 91 Fitz Roy, Robert 87, n.41p.258 Fleming, Francis 123, 126 Ford, Charles 35, 65, 220 Formosa — see Taiwan France 11, 45, 86, 216, n.86p.266 Fraser-Smith, Robert 35, 85, 222

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Freetown (West African Settlements) 31 Friend of China 22 Fritsche, Hermann 11, 15, 38, 88, 129, 139 Froc, Louis Marie 20, 21, 78, 125, 136, 159, 169, 174, 177, 179, 183, 197, 210, 223, n.71p.269, n,10p.270 Fryer, John n.20p.250 Fuzhou 11, 42, 89, 145, 175, n.9p.257 Gap Rock — see Lighthouses Gaubil, Antoine 4 Gauss C. F. 16 Geomagnetic activity and weather 88 Geomagnetic monitoring 10, 11, 16, 20, 29, 37, 68, 88, 103, 109, 157, 217 at Hong Kong 29, 37, 38, 48, 51, 102, 103, 157, 212 Georgetown College Observatory 104 Gezhi huibian n.20p.250 Gherzi, Ernesto 24, 147, n.82p.252 Glasgow Observatory 126, 127 Government Astronomer 10, 20, 56, 66, 71, 73, 78, 80, 84, 85, 89, 93, 99, 105, 106, 107, 108, 114, 119, 129, 153, n.11p.260 Great Northern Telegraph Company 33, 44, 89 Green, Lieutenant-Commander USN 37, 85 Greenwich Observatory 51, 66, 70, 85, 127, 164, 195, 219, n.19p.250 Grenfell, Harry T. 117 Guam 212 Guangdong 21, 136, 137, 138 Guangxi 21 Gutzlaff — see Lighthouses Hagen, John G. 18 Hainan 145, 189 Haiphong 20, 21, 145 Observatory — see Phu Lien Observatory Hakodate Meteorological Station 21 Hang hai jin zhen 5 Hankow (Hangzhou) 13, 76


Index

283

Hart, James H. 42, 44 Hart, Robert 8, 12–15, 19, 42, 44, 45, 46 Havana Observatory 18, 141 Hayllar, T. C. 41 Hennessy, Henry G. 31 Hennessy, John Pope — see Pope Hennessy Herschel, Caroline 222 Herschel, William 222 Heude, P. M. 19 Hewett, Edbert Ansgar 191, 211 Heywood, G. S. P. 149 Ho Kai (Dr) 191 Ho Pui-yin 4, 22, 23, 54 Ho To-shang 112, 126, 221 Hoare, Bishop Joseph 194 Hoihow (Haikou) 145, 155 Hong Kong 9, 10, 11, 13, 20, 21, 23, 41, 42 Botanical Gardens 35, 65, 220 Central Police Station 93 Central School 39, 218, n.22p.260 Chamber of Commerce 94, 152, 153, 176, 177, 179, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 191, 197, 216, n.29 p.261, n.51 p.268 Chinese Chamber of Commerce n.22p.260 Club 94, 158 College of Medicine for Chinese 124, 158 Engineer’s Institute 158 Executive Council 28, 35, 80, 125, n.28p.261 harbour master 23, 25, 52, 68, 72, 74, 78, 91, 94, 110, 113, 117, 151, 178, 197 latitude of 31, 37, 47, 48, 66, 172, 219, n.122p.267, n.124p.267 Legislative Council 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 39, 47, 48, 49, 79, 99, 105, 106, 116, 117, 119, 135, 150, 152, 153, 156, 176, 187, 190, 209, 211, 223, n.28p.261, n.29p.261 Lock Hospital 23, 72 Meteorological Society 46, 155 Mint 14, 38, 57, 70, 74, 82, 85, n.2p.249, n.7p.255

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284

Index The Peak 23, 85, 111, 122, 123, 134, 135, 165, 166, 173, 211 Royal Naval Yard, Hong Kong 94 Seamen’s Hospital 22 Shipping 10 Spanish consul at 33, 118, 121, 151, 176 Standard time 85, 159, n.83p.266 surveyor general 28, 31, 35, 39, 52, 53, 69, 72, 74, 85, 97, 99, 116, 156, 157, 220 Technical Institute 218 Wah Fu Estate n20p.253 Hong Kong Daily Press 20, 23, 30, 35, 71, 151, 170, 191, 219, 224 Hong Kong Government Gazette 22, 23, 25, 30, 35, 36, 53, 68, 91, 95, 96, 105, 106, 144, 146, 154, 159, 174, 182, 98, n.79p.269 Hong Kong Observatory 13, 25, 27, 31, 43, 44, 52, 61, 85, 89, 111, 116, 123, 124, 133, 146, 149, 170, 177, 181, 185 building 72, 85, 86, 97 commissions of enquiry 92, 115, 117– 123, 152–154, 165–168, 169, 191–194, 195, 196, 209 cost of setting up 53, 97 De La Rue proposal 32 director for 14, 56, 64 Palmer’s plan 36–40, 43, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 66, 70, 73, 96, 104, 109, 221 Price’s first plan 28–31, 32, 37 Price’s second plan 50–54, 66 retrenchment committee 152, 156, 162, 166, 168, 225 Royal Hong Kong Observatory 149, 212 technical staff 217, 220–221 Hong Kong Telegraph 35, 53, 70, 76, 78, 82, 84, 99, 100, 144, 145, 151, 152, 153, 154, 174, 176, 185, 199, 211, 222 India, meteorology in 16, 32, 65, 73, 88, 110, 124, 216, 218 Indian Ocean 11, 16, 25, 32, 88, 136, 203


Indo-China 19, 20, 89, 149, 160 International Astronomical Union 108 Introduction to Astronomy (Plummer) 126 Ireland 56, 59, 61, 62, 63, 67, 68, 71, 81, 88, 96, 97, 122, 129, 131 Japan 1, 2, 3, 9, 11, 14, 20, 21, 24, 36, 43, 54, 73, 84, 102, 111, 116, 125, 138, 140, 141, 148, 157, 174, 180, 181, 183, 204, 214, 217, 219, 223 Japan Mail 219 Japanese Weekly Mail 102, 118 Jardine Matheson time gun 27 Jeffries, C. W. 149, 200, 208, 212 Jena, University of 59 Jesuits 4, 5, 8, 15, 18, 19, 46, 66, 76, 77, 110, 125, 159, 160, 174, 179, 180, 191, 195, 197, 210, 222, n.19p.250, n.71p.269 Jesus Christ 7 Jiangnan 19 Arsenal n.17p.249 Association for Science 19 Johnson, F. Bulkeley 47, 49 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 137 Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan 148 Jupiter 88, 105 Kai Lung Wan 33, 34 Kang Hi Observatory 47 Keelung 11, 15 Kellett Bay — see Kai Lung Wan Kennedy, Sir Arthur 28, n.14p.253 Kew Observatory 50, 66, 67, 70, 88, 113, 115, 169 Kierkegaard, Søren 57 Kimberley, Lord 39, 40, 41, 49 Kinder, Thomas William 14, 74, 82 Kiukiang (Jiujiang) 76 Knipping, Erwin 21–22, 111, 140, 141, 142, 143, n.21p.268 Knutsford, Lord 127 Kobe Observatory 22 Koo, Elaine 225 Korea 3, 138, 140 Koshun — see South Cape

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Kowloon 29, 35, 53, 75, 84, 107, 108, 112, 116, 117, 122, 151, 157, 158, 177, 186, 187, 204, 224, 226, 228, n.35p.271 Kronk, Gary W. 129 Kublai Khan 11 Kyushu 11 Labuan 30, 137 Lamock Islands 13, 91 Lantau 8, 22, 174, n.23p.250 Latitude, of Hong Kong 37, 47, 48, 66, 172, 219, n.122p.267, n.124p.267 of observatories 31 Lau Chu Pak n.22p.260 Law of Storms in the China Sea 149, 200 Law of Storms in the Eastern Seas (Doberck) 98, 99, 100, 101, 119, 133, 144–149, 202, 214, 222 Liébert, Gaston 191, 192 Lighthouses 12, 19, 42, 43, 44, 76, 77, 85, 141, 182 Gap Rock 163, 182 Gutzlaff 91, 184, 185 Liverpool Astronomical Society 108 Liverpool Journal of Commerce 147 Lloyd, Humphrey 16 Lockhart, James Stewart 178, 179 Longitude 7, 27 of Hong Kong 37, 85, 219, n.19p.250 of meteorological stations 31 Lucas, C. P. 131, 157, 164 Lugard, Sir Fredrick 209, 210, 211, 223 Lunar eclipse 151, 170 Luzon 33, 41, 79, 138, 196 Macao 3, 8, 9, 23, 136, 145, 174, 181, 194, n.25p.250 Mac Donnell, Richard Graves 74 MacGowan, Daniel Jerome 5–8, n.17p.249, n.24p.263 on typhoons 138–139 Madras Observatory 16, 37, 56, 64, 104, 129 Malkus Simpson, Joanne n.78p.262


Index

285

Manila 13, 18, 19, 20, 24, 29, 31, 33, 38, 41, 64, 66, 71, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 103, 104, 111, 114, 141, 142, 145, 148, 159, 175, 177, 191, 196, 198, 209, 212, 214, 222, n.45p.264, n.8p.267 Observatory 17–18, 24, 31, 41, 43, 48, 73, 78, 79, 94, 95, 100, 101, 109, 121, 150, 151, 170, 172, 173, 174–181, 185, 192, 194, 195, 196, 209, 212, 222, n.9p.257, n.21p.268 Mantawalok 18, n.52p.251, n.12p.253 Mantawatukiki n.52p.251 Marianas 188, 196 Markree Catalogue 61 Markree Observatory 60–61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 71, 80, 88, 98, 131, 170, 171, 214, 222, 226, 227 Marryat’s code 188 Marsh, William H. 48, 52, 99, 105, 220 Marth, Albert 64 Masons 222–223, n.28p.261 Mauritius 14, 16, 36, 46, 56, 66, 83, 88, 96, 98, 155, 211, 218 Meteorological Society 155, 217 Observatory 16, 29, 39, 46, 105, 162, 203, 211, 223 Royal College 218 Maury, Lt. Matthew 218, 224 May, F. H. 184, 198 Mayer, Christian n.30p.271 McEwen, Alexander P. 117 McMillin Observatory 171 Meade, R. H. 68, 72, 131, n.44p.257 Meiaco-sima (Miyako) 142, 192, 197 Melbourne 64 Meldrum, Charles 16, 39, 88, 203, 211 Meldrum’s rules 16 Mendenhall, Thomas Corwin 22 Meteorological Society of Paris 19 Meteorology, 1, 2–15, 17, 29, 37, 64, 132, 135 advances in 18, 86–88 China coast 41–46, 139 Dutch contribution 21

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286

Index early Hong Kong 22–30 in Japan 21–22 in South East Asia 19–20 Meteorology in China (Gherzi) 147 Meyen, Franz Julius Ferdinand 8–9, 22, 137, n.25p.250 Microseisms 24, n.80p.252, n.82p.252 Middle Dog, 76, 91 Mindinao 148 Mohn, Henrik 130, n.69p.262 Mohr, Johan Maurits 3 Monsoon 37, 102, 149, 215 Month, The 191 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 61, 226, 227 Moore, Willis L. 180 Morrison, D. 160 Mount Elgin 29, 37, 39, 50, 53, 55, 72, 213 Nagasaki 13, 21, 23, 89, 136, 140, 145 Nanyue Zhi 136 Naples 225 Nathan, Sir Matthew 159, 190, 191, 198, 204, 205, 207, 218, 219 Nature 20, 24, 27, 36, 51, 56, 71, 73, 99, 100, 108, 119, 132, 140, 144, 216, 228 Navigators Golden Needle — see Hang hai jin zhen Neptune 88 New Zealand 219 Newchwang (Yingkou) 13, 15 Ningbo 5, 6, 138, n.17p.249, n.9p.257 Noronha & Co. 146 North China Daily News 42, n.61p.254 North Saddle 91 O’Brien, G. T. M. 152 Observatory, The 127 Ockseu (Wuqiuyu) 76, 91 Old Moore’s Almanac 179 Oluanpi — see South Cape Ordre de Dragon d’Annam 160, n.86p.266 Origin of Typhoons, The (Plummer) 134, 199, 200 O’Rorke, Timothy 63, 108, 131, 222


Orwell Park Observatory 126, 127, 128 Osaka Mint 14 Observatory 22 Pagan Island 196 Pakhoi (Beihai) 155 Palawan 146 Palmer, Henry Spencer 36–40, 46, 47, 50, 53, 54, 56, 69, 81, 85, 97, 101, 102, 110, 121, 144, 156, 157, 219 and Japan 36, 54 career 36, 54, 219, n.90p.255 departure from Hong Kong 54 honorarium for 40 later visit to Hong Kong 118–119, 123 liberal opinions of 36 Paracels 189 Paragua 148 Parsons, William (Earl of Rosse) 30 Parsonstown (Birr) 30 Pechüle, Carl Frederik 58 Pedro Blanco 196 Peking 5, 7, 12, 14, 17, 38, 43, 47, 88, 139 Observatory 4, 19 Russian Observatory 11, 31, 38 Peking Gazette 38 Philippines 2, 5, 17, 18, 21, 24, 33, 76, 79, 95, 115, 136, 145, 175, 176, 180, 190, 213 Meteorological Service 18, 196 Telegraphic Agency 33 Weather Bureau 18, 148 Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society 23 Phu Lien Observatory 21 Piazzi Smyth, Charles 214 Piddington, Henry 6, 24, 65, 137, 138, 139, 144, 203, n.80p.252 Pilot charts 202, 224–225 Plummer, Euphemia Beatrice n.64p.262 Plummer, John n.64p.262 Plummer, John Isaac 126, 167, 168, 169, 199, 204, 207, 209, 211, 212, 221, 224 acting director 162–164 appointment to Hong Kong 126–127

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and astronomy in Hong Kong 171, 172, 173 conflict with Doberck 129, 133–134, 158, 161, 164–167 and domestic drama 134 early career in astronomy 126–129, 134 and meteorology 128 Observatory duties 160, 172 pamphlet on typhoons 199–200 retirement 224 Plummer, Marion n.64p.262 Plummer, Marion (née Forsyth), n.64p.262, n.37p.271 Pokfulam 174 Pope Hennessy, John 25, 28–31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41, 47, 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 69, 70, 71, 75, 79, 83, 94, 100, 101, 102, 105, 119, 156, 198, 219, n.7p.253, n.8p.253, n.11p.253 Pope Hennessy, Kitty 41 Posiet — see Vladivostock Price, John Macneile 28, 31, 34, 35, 38, 40, 43, 48, 49, 50–54, 55, 56, 61, 66, 69, 70, 72, 75, 76, 82, 96, 97, 99, 109, 116, 122, 156, 157, 198, 220, n.14p.253, n.21p.253 Proceedings of the Royal Society 30 Pulkovo Observatory 59 Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society 119 Queen’s College, Cork 30 Queen’s University, Belfast 13 Rain-band spectroscope 63, 214–215 Redfield, John H. 6, 142 Reid, William 6, 7, 138, 144 Rifleman’s Bolt 157 Ripon, Marquess of 135 Roberts, Mr. [?] 157 Robinson, Hercules 72, 74 Robinson, Thomas Romney 59, 86, n.39p.258 Robinson, Sir William 135, 154, 169, 202


Index

287

Rodrigues 16 Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch) 218, 219 Royal Astronomical Society 61, 63, 69, 106, 126, 127, 131, 159, 171, 219, 226 Royal Hong Kong Observatory 3, 212 Royal Irish Academy 61, 71 Royal Meteorological Society 62, 74, 80, 159, 226 Royal Navy 117, 147, 178, 191, 216 Royal Society (London) 3, 16, 30, 31, 40, 56, 63, 65, 66, 81, 103, 138, 156, 216 Kew Committee of 32, 40, 43, 49, 50, 51, 52, 67, 103, 104, n.90p.255 Rubenson, E. 62 Rumsey, Robert M. 117 Ryder, Admiral Alfred P. 29, 156 Ryrie, Phineas 116, n.29p.261 Ryukyu Islands 141, 142 Sabine, Edward 16 Saddle Islands — see Shaweishan Saderra Masó 44, 79, 196, 198, n.52p.251, n.26p.261 Saigon 13, 89 Sailors Horn-Book for the Law of Storms 65 Samoa 155 Santo Domingo de Basco 196, 211 Satow, Sir Ernest 168 Saturn 88, 105 Schjellerup, Hans Carl Frederik Christian 59 Scotland 87 Scott, Robert H. 64, 68, 80, 88, n.45p.264 Secchi, Pietro Angelo 18, 179 Seismology 10, 18, 24, 103 at Hong Kong 24, 212 at Manila 24 Seychelles 16 Shanghai 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 23, 29, 33, 41–45, 64, 66, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76–78, 85, 89, 101, 104, 116, 142, 145, 155, 170, 174, 182–184, 187, 191, 196, 203, 209, 210, 212, 214

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288

Index Chamber of Commerce 19, 42, 44, 45 Meteorological Committee 42, 45 Shanghai Meteorological Society 155 Shanghai Observatory — see Zikawei Shaweishan 91, 142 Shenyang 142 Siberia 20, 225 Sicawei — see Zikawei Sierra Leone 28, 31 Singapore 13, 70, 89, 118, 129, 157, 224 Singapore Free Press 101 Sino-Japanese War 174 Skertchly, Sydney B. 158, 170 Skidmore, Eliza 173, 177 Smart, William R. E. 22 Society of Jesus — see Jesuits Solar eclipse 17, 30, 179, n.12p.253 Solomon, Solomon Ruben 85, 112 South Africa 16, 103 South Cape (Eluanbi) 76, 175 South China Morning Post 191, 194, 196, 210 Spanish-American War 174–175 Spottiswoode, William 56 St. Brandon 16 St. Helena 16 St. John’s Island (Sancian) 137 St. Petersburg 11, 59, 64 Stanley, Lord 30 Starbuck, L. 53, 129, 196 Steep Island 91 Stevenson, Sir Thomas 86, 88, n.38p.258 Stewart, Frederick 80, 84, 99, 105, 107, 198 Stokes, George Gabriel 30 Stonecutter’s Island 23 Stonyhurst Observatory 18, 19, 66, 109, 179 Storm signals 92, 156, 159, 186 British system 182 gun signal 25, 27, 92, 93, 99, 100, 102, 105, 122, 175, 182, 215 Zikawei system (China Coast code) 183, 184, 187 189 Storm warnings 22, 25, 42, 91, 217 from Manila 18, 33, 41, 94, 100, 116, success of 215 Sumatra 136


Sun spots 29, 32, 38, 67, 88, 114, 214, n43p.258 Sung Man-Hoi 85 Sutton 226 Swatow (Shantou) 75, 76, 145 Swedish Academy of Science 3 Swedish East India Company 3 Sydney 65 Synoptic charts 16, 87, 160, 192, 193, 195, 203 Taiwan 7, 20, 76, 89, 136, 140, 142, 145, 155, 175, 181, 188, 192, 196, 197, 214, n.82p.252 Takow 76 Taku 15 Talcott’s method 47 Taliabu Island n.52p.251 Tamsui (Danshui) 89, 175 Telescope at Markree 61 Billant equatorial at Zikawei 20 Dollond at Manila 18 at Hong Kong (Lee Equatorial) 61, 104, 165, 171, 212, n.84p.260 Telegraphic code 5 contact, with Hong Kong 90 Fuzhou-Xiamen 42, Hong Kong–Manila 18, 29, 33, 175, n.8p.267 Hong Kong–Zikawei 20 Shanghai-Zikawei 20, 44, 45 Tamsui-Fuzhou 175 Thompson, James B. 22 Thompson, Sir William 156 Tides, observation of 7, 29 37, 47, 113, 156–157, 216, n.69p.265, n.71p.265 Tillet, Captain A. 152, 154 Time-ball, at Hong Kong 25, 27–29, 32, 37, 39, 40, 51, 52, 53, 85, 96, 104, 109, 116, 119, 121, 124, 129, 134, 159, 161, 165, 186, 189, n.36p.258 at Manila 18 at Shanghai 20, 29, 45 Tokyo 20, 21, 140, 145, 155, 175, 181, n.21p.268

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Meteorological Observatory 22, 73, 111, 120, 212 University of 22, 141 Tomline, Col. George 127 Tomsk 20 Tong King-sing 42, 44 Tongwen Guan (Peking College) 12, 14 Tonkin Observatory — see Phu Lien Observatory Tonnochy, Malcolm Struan 39, 40, 41 Tookey, Charles 74 Toronto 16 Transit of Venus 4, 14, 126, 127, 219 Treaty ports 12, 15, 43, 73, 77, 78, 223 Tsimshatsui 99, 102, 175 Tuburan 175 Tung Wah Hospital 33, 34 Turnabout 76, 91 Tyler, William Ferdinand 78, 159 Typhoons 65, 76, 135–143 in China Sea 6, 37, 137 classification of 135, 146, 149 early records of 136–140 at Hong Kong 22, 24, 28, 33, 41, 65, 93, 114, 120, 163, 190–197, 211 at Japan 22, 140, 141, n.28p.264 at Kobe 140 at Manila 41, 142 nature of 140, 144–145, 149, 199 at Shanghai 19, 42, 46, 174 shelters 217 study of 135–143 Ulysses 30 United States Army Signalling Corp 92 United States Weather Bureau 175, 176, 178, 180 Uranus 88 Urga 129 Van der Stok, J. P. 21 Van Diemen’s Land 16 Verbiest, Ferdinand 4 Victor Emmanuel 52 Vines, Benito 18, 141 Visayas 142, 175 Vladivostock 13, 43, 89, 101, 145, 155


Index

289

Waglan Island 197 Wan Suit Ngam n.29p.271 Weather forecasting 11, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 42, 43, 45, 53, 57, 62, 64, 67, 68, 71, 76, 87–88, 89, 94, 109, 129, 141, 142, 148, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 161, 166, 173, 174, 180, 185, 190, 199, 203, 208, 214, 215 Wenchow (Wenzhou) 145 Whipple, G. M. 66, 88 Wilson, F. W. 167 Wireless telegraphy 211, 213 Wo Hop Sek cemetery 34 Wodehouse, Mr. 13 Woosung 42 Wright, H. P. 40 Xiamen 3, 14, 23, 33, 42, 71, 89, 93, 136, 145 Yangtze Valley 20 Yap 20, 212 Yin yang theories 7 Ying King (steamer) 211 Yokohama 13, 54, 99, 118 Yongzheng Emperor 15 Yunnan 21 Zheng He 136 Zhoushan (Chusan) 3 Zhu Kezhen 4, 148 Zikawei Observatory 14, 15, 19–20, 21, 31, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 74, 76, 78, 81, 101, 111, 125, 136, 140, 142, 149, 159, 160, 169, 174, 177, 178, 179, 182–184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 191, 192–193, 195–197, 209–210, 212, 214, 215, 217, 222, 223, n.19p.250, n.21p.268 Bulletin des Observations 148 geomagnetism at 19, 20, 76 Zosé Hill (Sheshan) 104

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