HISTORY does not record what transpired at the meeting on April 29th, 1865, between Lieut. Matthew Fontaine Maury of the US Naval Service and Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy of the British Royal Navy. History does record, however, that relations between the two were strained, and that the following morning, April 30th, 1865, Robert FitzRoy committed suicide.
Both men were giants of their day in the world of meteorology. Twelve years previously Matthew Maury had forged the beginnings of intergovernmental co operations in the science by organising the First International Conference on Meteorology in Brussels. At home in America, he was his, country's foremost oceanographer. Also by making use of the weather observations carried out by ships, he had transformed contemporary navigational techniques.
FitzRoy, for his part, was the father of organised meteorology in these islands.
Following several disastrous shipwrecks in the 1850s he had been given the task of producing scientifically based weather forecasts. He obtained the data for these by establishing a network of weather observing stations on the coasts of Britain, France and Ireland. Beginning in 1861, warnings were telegraphed to 40 ports and harbours around the country whenever gales were expected and within 30 minutes appropriate signals were prominently displayed on shore to relay the word to passing ships.
This system of "storm warnings" was generally regarded as successful but FitzRoy's forecasts in The Times were the subject of less favourable comment: "The public has not failed to notice with interest", wrote their leader writer, "and we fear with some wicked amusement, that we now undertake every morning to prophesy the weather for the two days next to come. While disclaiming all credit for the occasional success, we must, however, demand to be held free of any responsibility for the all too common failures which attend these prognostications".
Perhaps it was this that had the admiral depressed. On the other hand, we know that he had an intense dislike of Maury, whom he accused of stealing his methodology for application in America. Their meeting during Maury's London visit was unlikely to be cordial.
Either way, it was immediately after that fateful confrontation between the two that Admiral FitzRoy, on this morning 131 years ago, rose early, left his wife asleep in bed, briefly visited his sleeping daughter, and then proceeded to his dressing room where he cut his own throat with a sharp razor. The real reason why he did so we shall probably never know.