Robert Fitzroy was Charles Darwin’s sea captain. 

Robert Fitzroy was also a politician, a governor, a scientist, a civil servant and an officer of the British Navy.

Robert Fitzroy was a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate daily weather predictions. He was the founding father of the Met Office.

He designed and directed distribution of a type of barometer which was fixed at every port to be available to crews for consultation before setting out to sea.

The Royal Charter Storm inspired Fitzroy to develop charts to allow predictions to be made in which he coined the term “weather forecasts”.

He was governor of New Zealand for two years and tried to protect Maori from illegal land sales claimed by British settlers.

Fitzroy struggled with black depressions.

Predicting the weather began to tell.

Punch christened him “The First Admiral of the Blew” and “The Clerk of The Weather”.

His meteorological project meant he was always in the paper, as much perhaps as Darwin. He had to contend with a hostile press and a nervous scientific community.

When “The Origin of Species” was published Fitzroy was apparently discomposed and suffered guilt for his part in the theory’s development.

On Sunday April 30th 1865 he rose for church and kissed his daughter Laura, as he walked to his dressing room. Then he turned the key in the lock, picked up his razor and cut his throat.