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Abstract

Stephen M [Martin] Saxby, was hired by the British Admiralty as an acting Naval Instructor to instruct junior officers and engineers at the Chatham naval base. He lived on the HMS Devonshire, Sheerness UK, from 1858 to 1865. He was interested in the formation of storms and weather forecasting and he came up with a theory that was totally erroneous. He believed that the declination of the moon, north or south of the equator, influenced the formation of storms and hurricanes.
A letter from Saxby to Dr George Fordyce Story dated 1865.
Saxby writes about his third son, Gordon Harding Saxby's visit to friend Mr Meredith during the time of the great flood on 14th December. He was staying with Sir Richard Dry at Quamby Hall on Tasmania's East Coast prior to leaving for New Zealand.
He thanks Story for his weather register, and comments that many lives that had been saved through his meteorological observations. He also mentions his second son Henry Linkmeyer Saxby (Doctor and ornithologist) and father-in-law , Dr Laurence Edmondston (Doctor and well respected amateur naturalist, who built Halligarth on Unst, now owned by the National Trust for Scotland). From Cotton Family Papers C7/176

Item Type:	Other
Authors/Creators:	Saxby, Stephen Martin
Keywords:	GF Story, George Fordyce Story, S M Saxby, HMS Devonshire, Sheerness, UK, Tas, Tasmania, correspondence, social history, weather register, New Zealand, Swan River, Mr Meredith, Oyster Bay, Richard Dry, Quamby Hall, Dr Edmond, meterology, weather observations, climate observations, weather register
Publisher:	University of Tasmania Library Special and Rare Materials Collection
Copyright Information:	The University of Tasmania Library is copying and communicating the material in this collection as a service to the public. Please note than any further copying by you may be subject to copyright protection. If you do re-use the material please provide the following acknowledgement: “Courtesy of the UTAS Library Special & Rare Collections and The Plomley Foundation“. Such a reference is not an endorsement, authorisation or recommendation by the University of Tasmania
Collections:	Quaker Collection Dr GF Story Collection
Additional Information:	Saxby’s weather forecasting is discussed in The Discovery of Weather: Stephen Saxby, the tumultuous birth of weather forecasting, and Saxby’s Gale of 1869. Halifax NS; Formac Publishing, www.formac.ca, 2012 and also in the books written by Saxby: Foretelling Weather, Being a Description of a Newly-Discovered Lunar Weather-System & Saxby's weather system or Lunar influence on weather (1864)
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