Robert FitzRoy FRS ( 1805 - 1865)

English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin’s famous voyage, FitzRoy’s second expedition to Tierra del Fuego and the Southern Cone.

FitzRoy was a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate daily weather predictions, which he called by a new name of his own invention: “forecasts”. In 1854 he established what would later be called the Met Office, and created systems to get weather information to sailors and fishermen for their safety. He was a surveyor and hydrographer. As Governor of New Zealand, serving from 1843 to 1845, he tried to protect the Māori from illegal land sales claimed by British settlers.