Francis Beaufort

Rear Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, KCB, FRS, FRGS, FRAS, MRIA (/ˈboʊfərt/; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer and officer in the Royal Navy. Beaufort was the creator of the Beaufort Scale for indicating wind force.

Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Huguenots, who fled the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century. His parents moved to Ireland from London. His father, Daniel Augustus Beaufort, was a Protestant clergyman from Navan, County Meath, Ireland, and a member of the learned Royal Irish Academy. His mother Mary was the daughter and co-heiress of William Waller, of Allenstown House. Francis was born at Navan on 27 May 1774. He had an older brother, William Louis Beaufort and two sisters, Frances and Harriet. His father created and published a new map of Ireland in 1792. Francis grew up in Wales and Ireland until age fourteen. He left school and went to sea, but never stopped his education. By later in life, he had become sufficiently self-educated to associate with some of the greatest scientists and applied mathematicians of his time, including John Herschel, George Biddell Airy, and Charles Babbage.

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