Clement Lindley Wragge
Encyclopedia
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, in the West Midlands of England. Historically part of Worcestershire, Stourbridge was a centre of glass making, and today includes the suburbs of Amblecote, Lye, Norton, Oldswinford, Pedmore, Wollaston, Wollescote and Wordsley The...
, Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. After training in law, Wragge became renowned in the field of meteorology
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
, winning the Scottish Meteorological Society's
Scottish Meteorological Society
The Scottish Meteorological Society was founded in 1855 with private funding, particularly from wealthy landowners who wished to compile meteorological records in order to improve agriculture....
Gold Medal and starting the trend of using people's names for cyclone
Cyclone
In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth. This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate anticlockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere of the Earth. Most large-scale...
s. He traveled widely, and in his later years was a reliable authority on Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
.
Early years
Wragge lost both of his parents at a young age: his mother at five months and his father at five years. He was raised for a number of years by his grandmother, Emma Wragge at OakamoorOakamoor
Oakamoor is a small village in north Staffordshire, England.Although it is now a rural area, it has an industrial past which drew on the natural resources of the Churnet valley....
, Staffordshire and educated at Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter
Uttoxeter is a historic market town in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. The current population is approximately 13,711, though new developments in the town will increase this figure. Uttoxeter lies close to the River Dove and is near the cities of Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and...
Grammar School. Upon the death of his grandmother in 1865 he moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to live with relatives. There he followed in the footsteps of his father, studying law at Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
. He also studied navigation, and attended St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, is a hospital in Smithfield in the City of London, England.-Early history:It was founded in 1123 by Raherus or Rahere , a favourite courtier of King Henry I...
alongside medical students to watch operations. His second cousin was Clement Mansfield Ingleby
Clement Mansfield Ingleby
Clement Mansfield Ingleby was a Shakespearian scholar, perhaps best remembered as John Payne Collier's nemesis.-Early life and education:...
a partner in the family law firm Ingleby, Wragge, and Ingleby (which later became known as Wragge&Co of Birminham), and who became famous for his Shakespearean literary writings after he left the family legal partnership to pursue his scholarship.
In 1874 Wragge worked his way to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia on a windjammer
Windjammer
A windjammer is the ultimate type of large sailing ship with an iron or for the most part steel hull, built to carry cargo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century...
. He left the ship for a number of months to explore outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...
New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
and Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
. In 1875 he worked his way from Sydney to San Francisco and Salt Lake City. There he held long discussions with Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
. Claiming that polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
appealed to him, he considered becoming a Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
before returning to England. There he wrote a number of articles about Mormons and their religion.
Wragge returned to Australia in 1876, obtaining a position with the Surveyor-General's Department in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. Wragge worked there for three years, participating in surveys of the Flinders Ranges and Murray scrubland. He married on 13 September 1877 Leonora Edith Florence d'Eresby and returned to Oakamoor, England in 1878 with his wife.
Meteorology
Wragge's first meteorological job was working at a weather station in North StaffordshireStaffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...
in 1881, living at Parkhouse Farm, Farley, Staffordshire. After the secretary of the Scottish Meteorological Society selected him to set up an observatory on the top of Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis
Ben Nevis is the highest mountain in the British Isles. It is located at the western end of the Grampian Mountains in the Lochaber area of the Scottish Highlands, close to the town of Fort William....
Wragge climbed the peak daily to take readings, while his wife took comparable readings from sea level. For an unbroken series of observations from 1 June to 14 October 1881 he was awarded the Society's Gold Medal. After a second series of observations were undertaken in 1882 a Summit Observatory was opened in 1883. Wragge applied for the job of Superintendent, but was unsuccessful, possibly due to unpopularity.
Wragge's wife Leonora gave birth to a daughter, Leonora Ingleby in 1878; Emma. J, in 1879 and Clement Lionel Egerton in 1880 . His fourth child Rupert Lindley was born in August 1882 in Scotland. Wragge left for Australia soon after. His third child, Clement who was born in Farley, Staffordshire in 1880, would later enlist with the 2nd Light Horse Regiment of the First Australian Imperial Force
First Australian Imperial Force
The First Australian Imperial Force was the main expeditionary force of the Australian Army during World War I. It was formed from 15 August 1914, following Britain's declaration of war on Germany. Generally known at the time as the AIF, it is today referred to as the 1st AIF to distinguish from...
and die from wounds at Gallipoli
Battle of Gallipoli
The Gallipoli Campaign, also known as the Dardanelles Campaign or the Battle of Gallipoli, took place at the peninsula of Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916, during the First World War...
on 16 May 1915.
Wragge inherited a considerable fortune upon the death of a wealthy aunt in 1883, and the following year he moved with his wife to settle on the outskirts of Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. He established the Torrens Observatory at Walkerville
Walkerville, South Australia
Walkerville is a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It lies just north east of the city centre, about 4 kilometres from the Adelaide GPO.-History:Walkerville was named after Captain John Walker R. N...
, and another at Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty
Mount Lofty is the highest point in the Mount Lofty Ranges. It is located about 15km east of the centre of the city of Adelaide in South Australia and gives unrivalled panoramic views of the city and the Adelaide plains and foothills. It was first climbed by a European when explorer Collet Barker...
. In 1886 Wragge was the founding member of the Royal Meteorological Society of Australia.
In 1886 Wragge was commissioned by the Queensland Government to write a report on the development of a meteorological organisation in Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
that could help stem the shipping losses from cyclones. The Government was impressed with his work and on 1 January 1887 he was appointed Government Meteorologist for Queensland. Within three weeks of his arrival in Brisbane, 18.305 inches of rain fell, earning him the nickname "Inclement" Wragge. Wragge built a home, Capemba, at Taringa
Taringa, Queensland
Taringa is a suburb of Brisbane, Australia located 5 km south-west of the Brisbane CBD. Taringa is mostly residential, except for a small number of commercial buildings mostly clustered along Moggill Road...
.
He quickly caused disquiet amongst meteorologists and astronomers from the other colonies (of Australia) when he started producing charts and predictions not only for Queensland, but for other areas of the continent. He further inflamed them by inscribing his reports Meteorology of Australasia, Chief Weather Bureau, Brisbane and by claiming that while he and his staff were engaged entirely in meteorological research, weather men in other colonies were government astronomers whose time was also filled with postal and telegraph duties.
In the 1880s and 1890s Wragge set up an extensive network of weather stations around Queensland, and developed a series of storm signals to be used upon telegraphed instructions from Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
to Cape Moreton
Cape Moreton
Cape Moreton is a rocky headland located at the north eastern tip of Moreton Island in South East Queensland, Australia. The surrounding area is part of the Moreton Island National Park. 5 km north-west of Cape Moreton is Flinders Reef....
, Double Island Point
Double Island Point
Double Island Point is a coastal headland in Queensland, Australia. It's the next headland north of Noosa and is within the Cooloola section of the Great Sandy National Park, at the southern end of Wide Bay....
, Sandy Cape
Sandy Cape
Sandy Cape is the most northern point on Fraser Island off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The place was named by James Cook during his 1770 voyage up the eastern coast of Australia aboard the Endeavour...
, Bustard Head, Cape Capricorn
Cape Capricorn
Cape Capricorn is a coastal headland in central Queensland, Australia, at It was named by Captain Cook when he passed on 25 May 1770, since he found it to located on the Tropic of Capricorn. The modern surveyed location of its endpoint is just slightly north of the tropic.-Lighthouse:A lighthouse...
, Flat Top Island
Flat Top Island
Flat Top Island is a 1.58 ha island in south-eastern Australia. It is part of the Maatsuyker Island Group, lying close to the southern end of the south-western coast of Tasmania. It is also part of the Southwest National Park, and thus within the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Site...
, Cape Bowling Green, Cape Cleveland, Cooktown
Cooktown, Queensland
Cooktown is a small town located at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs in 1770. At the 2006 census, Cooktown had a population of 1,336...
, Thursday Island and Karumba
Karumba, Queensland
Karumba is a town in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia, 71 km by road from Normanton and 2159 km from the state capital, Brisbane. The settlement was previously known as Norman Mouth and Kimberely. Karumba was used by the local aborigines to describe the place...
. He also set up an international service with New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
, by which he received data on the newly laid cable from Noumea
Nouméa
Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...
. Between 1888 and 1893, Wragge trained Inigo Owen Jones
Inigo Owen Jones
Inigo Owen Jones was a meteorologist and farmer. He was born in Croydon, Surrey, England to Owen Jones a civil engineer and a descendant of the architect Inigo Jones...
who became a renowned long-range weather forecaster.
In 1895, Wragge set up a weather station near the summit of Mount Wellington, Tasmania, and 1897 established another on Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko
Mount Kosciuszko is a mountain located in the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park. With a height of 2,228 metres above sea level, it is the highest mountain in Australia...
. He also attended international conferences in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
(1891) and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1898 and 1900).
Wragge was also responsible for the convention of naming cyclones. His original idea was to name them after the letters of the Greek alphabet
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
but he later used the names of figures from Polynesian mythology and politicians. Politicians to have cyclones named after them by Wragge included James Drake
James Drake
James George Drake , Australian politician, was a member of the first federal ministry.Drake was born in London and educated at King's College School, and migrated to Australia in 1873, working as a storekeeper and journalist in Queensland...
, Edmund Barton
Edmund Barton
Sir Edmund Barton, GCMG, KC , Australian politician and judge, was the first Prime Minister of Australia and a founding justice of the High Court of Australia....
and Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin
Alfred Deakin , Australian politician, was a leader of the movement for Australian federation and later the second Prime Minister of Australia. In the last quarter of the 19th century, Deakin was a major contributor to the establishment of liberal reforms in the colony of Victoria, including the...
. Other colourful names he used included Xerxes, Hannibal, Blasatus and Teman. After Wragge's retirement, the practice of naming cyclones would cease for sixty years.
In 1898 Wragge began publishing Wragge's Australian Weather Guide and Almanac, which contained not just meteorological information, but contributions on geology, bush craft, agriculture, mining, water supplies and postal information. In an effort to break the drought of 1902 he purchased a number of Stiger Votex Cannons, which were supposedly able to bring rain from the clouds. Test firings at Charleville
Charleville, Queensland
Charleville is a town in south western Queensland, Australia, 758 kilometres by road west of Brisbane . It is the largest town and administrative centre of the Murweh Shire, which covers an area of 43,905 square kilometres...
on 26 September were unsuccessful. Wragge was not there to see the actual experiment, having left town after an argument with the local council. Today, two of the cannons are on display in Charleville.
Wragge resigned from the Queensland Government in 1903 when his funding was decreased following
the Federation of Australia
Federation of Australia
The Federation of Australia was the process by which the six separate British self-governing colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation...
.
Later years
Cook Islands
The Cook Islands is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand...
, New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
and Tahiti
Tahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
to examine local fauna, and wrote a report on caterpillars and paper wasps for the government in Rarotonga
Rarotonga
Rarotonga is the most populous island of the Cook Islands, with a population of 14,153 , out of the country's total population of 19,569.The Cook Islands' Parliament buildings and international airport are on Rarotonga...
.
He applied unsuccessfully for the job of (Australian) Commonwealth Meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology in 1908 before returning to New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. He lived for a time in Dunedin
Dunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
before settling at 8 Awanui Street (previously named Arawa St and prior to that Bath St), Birkenhead
Birkenhead, New Zealand
Birkenhead is a suburb of Auckland, in northern New Zealand. It is located on the north shore of the Waitemata Harbour, four kilometres northwest of the Auckland city centre....
, Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
with his "wife" Louisa Emmeline Horne, an Anglo-Indian theosophist. There he founded the Wragge Institute and Museum which was later destroyed by fire, and also the well known visitor attraction - Waiata tropical gardens.
During his tour to India, Prof. Wragge met Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad
Mīrzā Ghulām Aḥmad was a religious figure from India and the founder of the Ahmadiyya Community. He claimed to be the Mujaddid of the 14th Islamic century, the promised Messiah , and the Mahdi awaited by the Muslims in the end days...
, who had claimed to be the Promised Messiah foretold in the Bible and Islamic scriptures. Some of his followers believe that Wragge had converted to Islam and stayed a Muslim until his death. Proof of his conversion is cited by Ahmadiyya Muslim
Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya is an Islamic religious revivalist movement founded in India near the end of the 19th century, originating with the life and teachings of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , who claimed to have fulfilled the prophecies about the world reformer of the end times, who was to herald the Eschaton as...
(followers of Ghulam Ahmad) scholars in the form of letters written to one Mufti Muhammad Sadiq by Prof. Wragge after his meeting with Ghulam Ahmad in Lahore. However more personal family records confirm that Wragge remained a theosophist up until his passing in 1922.
Clement Wragge died on 10 December 1922 from a stroke. His son Kismet K Wragge stayed on as "First Officer" of the Wragge Institute.
Sources
- Crocket, Ken "The Ben Nevis Mystery" in JMT Journal 38 (January 2005) p19, retrieved 2 December 2006.
- Holmes, Stephanie "A hurricane by any other name?", bbc.co.uk, 21 September 2005. Retrieved 29 December 2005.
- McCormack, Gerald "The Myna or Ruin in Early Rarotonga" 29 September 2005. Retrieved 29 December 2005.
- Rodgers, Emma "Charleville shoots at the sky for rain" ABC Online, 9 February 2004. Retrieved 29 December 2005.
- Australian Bureau of Meteorology website
- Australian Defence Force Academy website
- http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-pa-HTTP%253A%252F%252FENC.SLQ.QLD.GOV.AU%252FLOGICROUTER%252FSERVLET%252FLOGICROUTER%253FPAGE%253DOBJECT%2526OUTPUTXSL%253DOBJECT.XSL%2526PM_RC%253DPICTQLD%2526PM_OI%253D10526%2526API_1%253DGET_DESCDOC%2526PM_OI%253D10526%2526PM_RC%253DPICTQLD%2526API_2%253DRETRIEVEINFO%2526PM_RELAY%253DPICTQLD%2526PM_OI%253D10526%2526PM_TPX%253D75%2526API_3%253DGET_OBJ%2526PM_RELAY%253DPICTQLD%2526API_4%253DGET_FILE_INFO%2526PM_OI%253D10526%2526PM_RC%253DPICTQLD%2526API_5%253DCOLL_GET_PEERS PictureAustralia website]
- Archaeopedia Article on Clement Wragge