Everything about Clement Lindley Wragge totally explained
Clement Lindley Wragge (
19 September 1852 -
10 December 1922) was a
meteorologist born in
Stourbridge,
Worcestershire,
England. After training in law, Wragge became renowned in the field of
meteorology, winning the Scottish Meteorological Society's Gold Medal and starting the trend of using people's names for
cyclones. He travelled widely, and in his later years was a reliable authority on
Australia,
India and the
Pacific Islands.
Early years
Wragge lost both of his parents at a young age: his mother at five months and his father at five years. He was raised for a number of years by his grandmother, Emma Wragge at Oakamoor, Staffordshire and educated at
Uttoxeter Grammar School.
(External Link
) Upon the death of his grandmother in 1865 he moved to
London to live with relatives. There he followed in the footsteps of his father, studying law at
Lincoln's Inn. He also studied navigation, and attended
St Bartholomew's Hospital alongside medical students to watch operations. His Uncle was Clement Mansfield Ingleby a partner in the law firm Ingleby Wragge and Ingleby, who became famous for his literary writings.
In 1874 Wragge worked his way to
Sydney, Australia on a
windjammer. He left the ship for a number of months to explore
outback New South Wales and
Queensland. In 1875 he worked his way from Sydney to
San Francisco and
Salt Lake City. There he held long discussions with
Brigham Young. Claiming that
polygamy appealed to him, he considered becoming a
Mormon before returning to England. There he wrote a number of articles about Mormons and their religion.
Wragge returned to Australia in 1876, obtaining a position with the Surveyor-General's Department in
South Australia. Wragge worked there for three years, participating in surveys of the Flinders Ranges and Murray scrubland. He married on
13 September 1877Leonora Edith Florence d'Eresby and returned to Oakamoor, England in 1878 with his wife.
Meteorology
Wragge's first meteorological job was working at a weather station in North
Staffordshire in 1881, living at Parkhouse Farm, Farley, Staffordshire. After the secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society selected him to set up an observatory on the top of
Ben Nevis Wragge climbed the peak daily to take readings, while his wife took comparable readings from sea level. For an unbroken series of observations from
1 June to
14 October 1881 he was awarded the Society's Gold Medal. After a second series of observations were undertaken in 1882 a Summit Observatory was opened in 1883. Wragge applied for the job of Superintendent, but was unsuccessful, possibly due to unpopularity.
Wragge's wife Leonora gave birth to a daughter, Leonora Ingleby in 1878; Emma. J, in 1879 and Clement Lionel Egerton in 1880 . His fourth child Rupert Lindley was born in August 1882 in Scotland. Wragge left for Australia soon after. His third child, Clement who was born in Farley, Staffordshire in 1880, would later enlist with the 2nd Light Horse Regiment of the
First Australian Imperial Force and die from wounds at
Gallipoli on
16 May,
1915.
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Wragge inherited a considerable fortune upon the death of a wealthy aunt in 1883, and the following year he moved with his wife to settle on the outskirts of
Adelaide,
South Australia. He established the Torrens Observatory at
Walkerville, and another at
Mount Lofty. In 1886 Wragge was the founding member of the Royal Meteorological Society of Australia.
In 1886 Wragge was commissioned by the
Queensland Government to write a report on the development of a meteorological organisation in
Queensland that could help stem the shipping losses from cyclones. The Government was impressed with his work and on
1 January 1887 he was appointed Government Meteorologist for Queensland. Within three weeks of his arrival in Brisbane, 18.305 inches of rain fell, earning him the nickname "Inclement" Wragge. Wragge built a home, Capemba, at
Taringa.
He quickly caused disquiet amongst meteorologists and astronomers from the other colonies (of Australia) when he started producing charts and predictions not only for Queensland, but for other areas of the continent. He further inflamed them by inscribing his reports
Meteorology of Australasia, Chief Weather Bureau, Brisbane and by claiming that while he and his staff were engaged entirely in meteorological research, weather men in other colonies were government astronomers whose time was also filled with postal and telegraph duties.
In the 1880s and 1890s Wragge set up an extensive network of weather stations around Queensland, and developed a series of storm signals to be used upon telegraphed instructions from
Brisbane to
Cape Moreton,
Double Island Point,
Sandy Cape,
Bustard Head,
Cape Capricorn,
Flat Top Island,
Cape Bowling Green,
Cape Cleveland,
Cooktown,
Thursday Island and
Karumba. He also set up an international service with
New Caledonia, by which he received data on the newly laid cable from
Noumea. Between 1888 and 1893, Wragge trained
Inigo Owen Jones who became a renowned long-range weather forecaster.
In 1895, Wragge set up a weather station near the summit of
Mount Wellington, Tasmania, and 1897 established another on
Mount Kosciuszko. He also attended international conferences in
Munich (1891) and
Paris (1898 and 1900).
Wragge was also responsible for the convention of naming cyclones. His original idea was to name them after the letters of the
Greek alphabet but he later used the names of figures from Polynesian mythology and politicians. Politicians to have cyclones named after them by Wragge included
James Drake,
Edmund Barton and
Alfred Deakin. Other colourful names he used included Xerxes, Hannibal, Blasatus and Teman. After Wragge's retirement, the practice of naming cyclones would cease for sixty years.
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In 1898 Wragge began publishing
Wragge's Australian Weather Guide and Almanac, which contained not just meteorological information, but contributions on geology, bush craft, agriculture, mining, water supplies and postal information. In an effort to break the drought of 1902 he purchased a number of Stiger Votex Cannons, which were supposedly able to bring rain from the clouds. Test firings at
Charleville on
26 September were unsuccessful. Wragge wasn't there to see the actual experiment, having left town after an argument with the local council. Today, two of the cannons are on display in Charleville.
(External Link)
Wragge resigned from the Queensland Government in 1903 when his funding was decreased following
the
Federation of Australia.
Later years
Wragge travelled for a number of years after finishing with the Queensland Government. In 1904 he visited the
Cook Islands,
New Caledonia and
Tahiti to examine local fauna, and wrote a report on caterpillars and paper wasps for the government in
Rarotonga.
(External Link)
He applied unsuccessfully for the job of (Australian) Commonwealth Meteorologist at the
Bureau of Meteorology in 1908 before returning to
New Zealand. He lived for a time in
Dunedin before settling at 8 Awanui Street,
Birkenhead,
Auckland with his "wife" Louisa Emmeline Horne, an Anglo-Indian
theosophist. There he founded the Wragge Institute and Museum which was later destroyed by fire, and also the well known visitor attraction - Waiata tropical gardens.
During his
tour to India, Prof. Wragge met
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who had claimed to be the Messiah foretold in the Bible and Islamic scriptures. Some of his followers believed that Wragge had converted to Islam and stayed a Muslim until his death. Proof of his conversion is cited by Ahmadiyya (followers of Ahmad) scholars in the form of letters written to one Mufti Muhammad Sadiq by Prof. Wragge after his meeting with Ahmad in Lahore. However more personal family records confirm that Wragge remained a theosophist up until his passing in 1922.
Clement Wragge died on
10 December 1922 from a stroke. His son Kismet K Wragge stayed on as "First Officer" of the Wragge Institute.
Sources
- Crocket, Ken "The Ben Nevis Mystery" in JMT Journal 38 (January 2005) p19, retrieved 2 December, 2006.
- Holmes, Stephanie "A hurricane by any other name?", bbc.co.uk, 21 September, 2005. Retrieved 29 December, 2005.
-
- McCormack, Gerald "The Myna or Ruin in Early Rarotonga" 29 September, 2005. Retrieved 29 December, 2005.
- Rodgers, Emma "Charleville shoots at the sky for rain" ABC Online, 9 February, 2004. Retrieved 29 December, 2005.
- Australian Bureau of Meteorology website
- Australian Defence Force Academy website
- PictureAustralia website
Further Information
Get more info on 'Clement Lindley Wragge'.
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