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William Scoresby
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British Arctic explorer, whaler, physicist, author, and clergyman who was also a pioneer in the study of animal magnetism. He was born on October 5, 1789, at Cropton, near Whitby, England. At the age of eleven, he accompanied his father (a master mariner) on a whaling expedition, afterward resuming his education at a simple country school. Three years later, he was apprenticed to his father on a whaler. He made annual voyages to Greenland, and became a ship's chief officer in 1806. Later in the same year, he resumed his studies, entering Edinburgh University, Scotland, and studying chemistry and natural philosophy.
In 1807, he undertook a voyage to survey and chart the Balta Sound in the Shetland Islands. Afterward he served with the fleet at Copenhagen. He left the navy a year later and became acquainted with Joseph Banks, who introduced him to other scientists of the day. Scoresby made studies of natural phenomena and resumed attendance at Edinburgh University. From 1813 to 1817, he was at sea again, in charge of whaling vessels. In January 1819, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in the following month he contributed a paper on variations of the magnetic needle to the Royal Society of London. The next year he published his first book, An Account of the Arctic Regions, with a History and Description of the Northern Whale-Fishery (2 vols., 1820), for many years the standard work on the subject. This was the first of a number of books that grew out of his worldwide travels.
In 1819, Scoresby moved with his family to Liverpool, where he superintended the building of the Baffin, a vessel fitted for the Greenland trade. He made three successful voyages in this vessel, but on returning to Liverpool in 1822, he found that his wife had died. Her death stimulated his strong religious convictions. Following his next voyage in 1823, he entered Queen's College, Cambridge, England, to prepare for the ministry. He was ordained in 1825, and for two years he was curé of Bessingby, near Bridlington Quay, in the north of England.
He became successively chaplain of Mariners Church, Liverpool (1827-32), incumbent of Bedford Chapel, Exeter (1932-39), and vicar of Bradford (1839-47). He resigned because of ill health, having spent six months leave on a voyage to the United States in search of a replacement. He lived his last years at the English seaside resort of Torquay when he was not traveling in search of some relief from his illness. He died at Torquay on March 21, 1857.
It was during his years at Exeter that Scoresby's interest in animal magnetism (mesmerism), arising from his observations on terrestrial magnetism during his polar voyages, emerged. During his last years at Torquay, he conducted a number of experiments, having found that he could mesmerize subjects easily. He gave the name "zoistic magnetism" to this hypnotic faculty. His third wife was one of his hypnotic subjects.
Scoresby's careful research into the possibility of clairvoyance resulted in persuasive evidence for thought transference or community of sensation between operator and subject. One entranced subject was able to describe accurately food that Scoresby tasted and also identified physical sensations in Scoresby's body. Another subject was immobilized as she sat on a sofa that had been "magnetized" by Scoresby and was unable to move outside an imaginary circle that Scoresby had traced on the floor. The power of purely imaginary diagrams to imprison hypnotized subjects was often explored by early mesmerists and suggests affinities with the magic circles of occult magicians.
Scoresby's work in the field of animal magnetism is of special importance. His book Zoistic Magnetism influenced James Esdaile, who read it while he was in India. Esdaile claimed to have successfully repeated Scoresby's experiment in "magnetizing" a sofa, using an armchair with knobs that Esdaile "magnetized." The subject was unable to remove his hands from the chair knobs until Esdaile had made mesmeric passes over him.
Sources:
Scoresby, William. Journal of a Voyage to Australia for Magnetical Research. London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts, 1859.
——. Magnetical Investigations. 2 vols. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844-52.
——. Zoistic Magnetism. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1849.
Stamp, Tom, and Cordelia Stamp. William Scoresby, Arctic Scientist. Whitby, U.K.: Whitby Press, 1975.
| Wikipedia: William Scoresby |
| William Scoresby | |
 William Scoresby
|
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| Born | 5 October 1789 Whitby , Yorkshire |
|---|---|
| Died | 21 March 1857 |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Fields | Exploration |
| Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
| Known for | Arctic |
William Scoresby (5 October 1789 - 21 March 1857), English Arctic explorer, scientist and divine, was born near Whitby in Yorkshire. His father, William Scoresby (1760 - 1829), made a fortune in the Arctic whale fishery. The son made his first voyage with his father at the age of eleven, but on his return returned to school, where he remained till 1803. After this he became his father's constant companion, and accompanied him as chief officer of the whaler Resolution when on 25 May 1806, he succeeded in reaching 81° 30’ N. lat. (19 E. long), for twenty-one years the highest northern latitude attained in the eastern hemisphere. During the following winter, Scoresby attended the natural philosophy and chemistry classes at Edinburgh University, and again in 1809.
In his voyage of 1807 Scoresby began the study of the meteorology and natural history of the polar regions. Earlier results included his original observations on snow and crystals; and in 1809 Robert Jameson brought certain Arctic papers of his before the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, which at once elected him to its membership.
In 1811, Scoresby's father resigned to him the command of the Resolution, and, in the same year, he married the daughter of a Whitby shipbroker. In his voyage of 1813, he established for the first time the fact that the polar ocean has a warmer temperature at considerable depths than it has on the surface, and each subsequent voyage in search of whales found him no less eager of fresh additions to scientific knowledge. His letters of this period to Sir Joseph Banks, whose acquaintance he had made a few years earlier, no doubt gave the first impulse to the search for the North-West Passage which followed. 29 June 1816, commanding the Esk on his fifteenth whaling voyage from Whitby, Scoresby encountered grave problems when ice damaged his ship. With the aid of his brother-in-law's crew on board the John, and after agreeing to surrendering much of their catch, the Esk was repaired, of which Scoresby recounted in his 1820 book The Northern Whale-Fishery.[1]
In 1819, Scoresby gained election as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and about the same time, communicated a paper to the Royal Society of London: "On the Anomaly in the Variation of the Magnetic Needle". In 1820, he published An Account of the Arctic Regions and Northern Whale Fishery, in which he gathers up the results of his own observations, as well as those of previous navigators.
In his voyage of 1822 to Greenland, Scoresby surveyed and charted with remarkable accuracy 400 miles of the east coast, between 69° 30’ and 72° 30’, thus contributing to the first real and important geographic knowledge of East Greenland. This, however, proved the last of his Arctic voyages. On his return, he learnt of his wife's death, and this event, with other influences acting upon his naturally pious spirit, decided him to enter the church.
After two years of residence in Cambridge, Scoresby took his degree (1825) and became the curate of Bessingby, Yorkshire. Meantime, had appeared at Edinburgh his Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery, including Researches and Discoveries on the Eastern Coast of Greenland (1823). The discharge of his clerical duties at Bessingby, and later at Liverpool, at Exeter and at Bradford, did not prevent him from continuing his interest in science. In 1824, the Royal Society elected him a fellow, and in 1827, he was became an honorary corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, while in 1839, he took the degree of D.D.
From the first, Scoresby worked as an active member and official of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and he contributed especially to the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism. Of his sixty papers in the Royal Society list, many more or less, relate to this department of research. But his observations extended into many other departments, including researches on optics. In order to obtain additional data for his theories on magnetism, he made a voyage to Australia in 1856 on board the ill-fated iron-hulled Royal Charter, the results of which appeared in a posthumous publication: Journal of a Voyage to Australia for Magnetical Research, edited by Archibald Smith (1859). He made two visits to America, in 1844 and 1848; on his return home from the latter visit he made some valuable observations on the height of Atlantic waves, the results of which were given to the British Association. He interested himself much in social questions, especially the improvement of the condition of factory operatives. He also published numerous works and papers of a religious character.
In 1850, Scoresby published a work urging the prosecution of the search for the Franklin expedition and giving the results of his own experience in Arctic navigation.
Scoresby married three wives in succession. After his third marriage (1849), he built a villa at Torquay, where he died on 21 March 1857.
Lunar crater Scoresby is named after him.
An early-twentieth-century research vessel in the employ of the British scientific organization, Discovery Investigations, was also named for Scoresby. Its crew conducted oceanographic and marine biological research in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Herman Melville's main character Ishmael quotes Scoresby in the Cetology chapter of Moby-Dick: "'No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology,' says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820." [2]
In his trilogy "His Dark Materials", English author Philip Pullman features a character named Lee Scoresby, who is an intrepid explorer, old Arctic hand, and balloon aeronaut. The character's friendship with a bear is perhaps influenced by William Scoresby's habit of making polar bears "pets" for friends[3]
See the Life by his nephew, Dr R. E. Scoresby-Jackson (1861).
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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