[This article first appeared in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine in 2022]
‘An Eye on the
Weather’: How Our Ancestors Monitored Their Climate
By Ruth A Symes
Study of Rooftops in the Snow (Camden), William Lionel Wyllie, 1860s/70s.
On Thursday 15th July 1762, alongside the usual records of births, marriages and deaths, a rector in Norfolk noted in his parish register that ‘there happened a most violent storm of thunder, lightning, hail and rain, the violence of which resulted in the roof of Billockby parish church falling in, broking [sic] down the seats and causing great damaged to the pulpit and desk.’
This kind of meteorological detail – though not required by the
authorities - was pretty commonly entered in registers by interested members of
the clergy. And, whilst not constituting a comprehensive record of weather in
the past, they do show how central concerns about the weather were to the
communities in which our ancestors lived. Vicars tended to record events that
particularly affected their immediate locality and the church itself, so there
are, for example, many accounts of churchyards being so hard and frozen that
graves couldn’t be dug. Such parochial accounts of the weather have not,
unfortunately, made it to the commercial online genealogical but if you are
able to read parish registers in a County Record Office, you might potentially
find mentions of shipwrecks, poor harvests, and food shortages – all of which
were the result of weather events.
Our ancestors were as interested in the weather as
we are – indeed, in the absence of central heating, air conditioning and
motorized vehicles, they no doubt paid more attention to it than we do. Average
temperatures and rainfall determined everything from the kinds of homes in
which they lived, the work they did, the food they ate, the transportation they
used and the clothing they favoured. Climate will also have played a part in
many of the life events and life decisions that turn up in family history
records determining dates of marriage, informing the statistics on causes of
death and seasonal mortality rates, and even shaping decisions to emigrate, migrate or
stay put in one geographical region.
You might want to
find out what the weather was like on the day your ancestors were married, or
ascertain whether the bronchitis from which they died was brought on by a
particularly cold spell. You might be interested in what motivated them to move
to a different county or country, or
want to know more about the weather conditions as they emigrated or were
transported.
So how can you find
out more ?| Happily, the resources for historic weather are multiple.
Newspapers
Historic newspapers
can now be searched (many of them freely) via the British Newspaper archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk). Newspapers often
gave a brief description of the weather over the past 24 hours with a
prediction for the next day. At special times, a detailed account of weather
conditions over a period of time might be given as is the case in The Carlisle
Journal 23rd November 1811 where a table of pressure, windspeeds
and temperatures taken over the previous three weeks at Dumfries was included
in the paper around the time of the appearance of a comet. Other newspaper accounts present the human
angle: on August 12th 1896,
for example, The Northern Daily Telegraph commented beneath the subtitle
‘Heat-wave in London’ that, “There was a remarkable accession of heat in London
yesterday. Coming after several days with a marked low temperature, the heat
was felt with exceptional severity. No fewer than 86 degrees (F) were
registered in the shade, and during the afternoon, numerous cases of sunstroke
were treated at the various Metropolitan hospitals and other institutions.’
Almanacs and
Diaries
In the Victorian
period, printed almanacs were purchased and pored over by all social classes.
These quirky little books occupied an odd place between superstition and science.
From at least the seventeenth century, it was widely believed that the weather
for a whole year could be predicted from the movement of the tide, the moon and
the planets. The kind of almanacs that might turn up today in antiquarian
bookshops and archives included calendars, meteorological information,
astronomical positions and prophecy alongside space for diary entries.
Our nineteenth and early twentieth -century century
ancestors were kept entertained by the increasing variety and affordability of apparatus for calibrating the weather
including temperature gauges, barometers and rain gauges. Some enthusiasts,
such as became so adept at recording weather features that their diaries actually became the starting
point for some aspects of modern meteorological enquiry. Francis Beaufort’s
(1774-1857) observations, for example became the basis for the Beaufort’ Scale (a measure for describing wind intensity based on observed sea
conditions).
Additionally, ordinary
people frequently made ad hoc mention of the weather in diaries and letters. The
published diary of the Rev. Kilvert of Herefordshire records that in chapel on Sunday
13th February 1870, for
example, his ‘beard, moustaches and whiskers were so stiff with ice that I
could barely open my mouth and my beard was frozen on to my mackintosh.’ Worse
still, he had to baptise a baby in a font in which ice was floating!
An ancestor’s diary might turn up in family papers.
Alternatively, a trip to a local record office searched through the Discovery
Section of the National Archives website www.nationalarchives.gov.uk may yield material written by people who lived
in the same locality as your ancestor at the same time. A writer’s diary entries on the weather might reveal
something of his or her religious beliefs (was a thunderbolt considered a
message from an angry God, for example? or was it purely seen in scientific terms?).
If a diarist tends to focus on only the gloomiest or the sunniest aspects of
the weather, you might also start to speculate on his or her temperament!
Official Records
A growing interest in science during the
Victorian period (boosted by the foundation of the Meteorological Office in
1854) means that a whole host of more scientific weather records began to be kept
by emergent weather stations, and observatories on land and at sea from the mid
nineteenth-century onwards. This means that all the major UK weather events,
from the harsh winters of 1947 and 1963 to the drought of 1976 and the Great
Storm of 1987, have left their imprint in numbers (temperature, pressure and
rainfall figures) as well as memories and ad hoc written accounts. More
information about six of the key weather stations (Eskmuirdale, Rothamsted,
Balmoral, Armagh, Morpeth (Cockle Park) and Llyysdinam) can be read at www.metofficed.gov.uk/weather/learn-abpout/how-forecasts-are-made/observations/recording-observations-for-over-100-years.
Until the 1960s, however, all of this
information was written on paper and left unanalysed in archives, Today,
scientists have realised the importance of historical-weather facts and figures.
Once scanned and transcribed, records can be analysed to enable the dynamic
recreation of 4D global weather patterns going back 150 years or more and hence
help to predict future weather patterns and potentially indicate climate change.
They may also provide new information and understanding for family historians.
You can freely search historical weather
data from the current 37 weather stations around the British Isles at the
Meteorological Office website https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/historic-station-data
ACRE Projects
Several potentially interesting
weather-related ‘citizen-science’ projects are currently being undertaken under
the umbrella of ACRE (Atmospheric Circulation Reconstruction over the Earth) led
by Dr Rob Allan of the UK Meteorological Office (see boxout). Volunteers have
offered their services in transcribing historical weather data and more are
always welcome. A few of the projects to whet your appetite are as follows:
Tempest Project ( www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/extreme-weather/search) This
freely available digital database on extreme weather events uses
information that has been extracted from archival records including letters, diaries, church records,
school logbooks, newspaper cuttings and photographs. Entries span 500 years of
weather history and relate to places across the UK (and Ireland), but focussed
on five case-study regions: Central England, Southwest England, East Anglia,
Wales, and Northwest Scotland. In addition to information on
extreme weather events, you will find details of the original documents, their
authors and the collections and repositories in which they are held.
Ships’
Logs (www.oldweather.org )Arctic, World War 2, whaling and worldwide weather
observations made in ships’ logs since the nineteenth century have been
transcribed and are freely available to search.
Rainfall Rescue (www.zenodo.org/record/5770389) has made available
millions of monthly rainfall amounts, taken at thousands of sites across the UK
and Ireland between 1677 and 1960. On the 66,000 scanned sheets of paper are
the rainfall measurements, as well as the observer’s name and location, which
helps link the measurements to individual people. Census information has been
used to identify precise houses or sites where the observations were taken.
Weather Rescue at Sea (www.WeatherRescue.org) looks at data from
ship weather logbooks during the 1860s. Previous Weather Rescue projects
recovered hourly observations taken on the summit of Ben Nevis and in the town
of Fort William between 1883 and 1904, and also observations from the UK,
Ireland and mainland Europe recorded in the Met Office's Daily Weather Report
from 1861-1874. In the early 1860s, Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy (former Captain
of HMS Beagle) sent weather measurement instruments to various UK locations so
that the weather could be continuously monitored for the purpose of providing
storm warnings to sailors. The daily observations were sent by telegraph back
to London each morning where they were collated and then used by Fitzroy to
make the very first storm warnings. By August 1861 these had become general
weather ‘forecasts’ – a word invented by Fitzroy himself. Volunteers have transcribed
the pressure, temperature and rainfall observations contained in the original
scanned documents. The data from these projects are gradually becoming
available at (https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/f4dbd99ad3634e64bb45ed6af216086a).
The
Female
Convicts Research Centre in Tasmania has transcribed weather records relating to
160 ships transporting 13,500 female convicts to Tasmania between 1803 and 1853
(https://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/index.php/database/database-research). To access these records you need to register as a
guest researcher at the Female Convicts’ Research Centre via the link above.
The Log of Logs (https://zenodo.org/record/6901#.XElxWZzgrQ0) details weather conditions on ships travelling into Australian and
New Zealand waters between 1788 and 1990. This freely searchable source
has been of particular interest to family historians searching for the ships on
which their ancestors sailed to Australia and New Zealand.
In
the future, family historians might look forward to the results of two other ACRE
projects being made available for research. One of these is a database of Royal
Navy Medical Officers’ Journals, Convict Ships’ Surgeons Journals and Surgeon
Superintendents’ Journals all of which
recorded weather conditions (through observation
and weather instruments) alongside health matters on (convict) ships. Weather
and the Country House is a (currently
stalled) joint project between ACRE and Oxford University which aims to uncover archival weather/climate and
related material, especially historical instrumental weather observations that
could be scanned and digitised, from member properties of the Historic Houses
Association.
For a summary of all the historical
weather projects run by ACRE and to offer your own volunteer transcription
services visit. www.citsci (met-acre.net)
Boxout : Dr Rob Allan and
the ACRE project
Dr Rob Allan is the International
ACRE Project Manager based at the
Meteorological Office in Exeter. He has also
worked on his own family history over many years. Following his development of
the International Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the
Earth (ACRE)
Initiative in 2007, he became interested in
how his professional life and his interest in genealogy might be brought
together. The result is the genesis of a series of fascinating historical
weather projects (detailed in the main text)
ACRE is a ‘grassroots’ initiative, which marshals together the
international weather and climate data rescue and science communities for
common benefit. It involves a variety of
international historical weather data rescue activities (recovering,
imaging/scanning, and digitising historical global instrumental terrestrial and
marine weather observations for as far back in time as possible). These data
are then fed into dynamical weather reconstructions producing sub-daily weather
maps at various heights throughout the depth of the atmosphere extending back
into the nineteenth century. The aim is to make these weather reconstructions –
which have a quality one sees in modern TV weather presentations - freely available to all.
Dr Allan’s particular passion has been for the Log of Logs
project launched in 2013 at https://zenodo.org/record/6901#.XElxWZzgrQ0.
You can find out more about the ACRE project online
at www.met-acre.org. ACRE also has a social media presence on
Facebook and Twitter.
Timeline
1. 1st February 1444. St Paul’s Cathedral
is struck by lightning in a terrible storm; the steeple is set on fire.
2. Winter 1607-8. Very low
temperatures lead to the Thames freezing over; so thick is the ice that a ‘Frost
Fair’ is held upon it.
3. 26th
November 1703. A Great Storm in Central and Southern England causes devastation - for the first time, news bulletins about
casualties and deaths are sold all over England.
4. Winter 1708-1709. The Great
Frost, as it was known in England, or Le Grand Hiver ("The Great Winter"), as it was known in
France, is billed as the coldest European winter for 500 years.
5. 14th/15th September, 1786: A
major storm destroys houses, overturns coaches and wagons, tears up trees and
kills many people, with the Midlands worst hit by winds of up to 80 knots.
6. 1815-1817 A ‘climate crisis’
brought on by the eruption of the volcano Tambora in Indonesia causes the
destruction of crops and consequent food shortages across Europe and North
America.
7. 6th
January 1839. The so-called Big Wind - a
European windstorm – sweeps across Ireland and Western England wreaking havoc
with great loss of life.
8. June 1858. A heatwave in London exacerbates
the decomposition of rubbish in streets and river leading to the ‘The Great
Stink’ and outbreaks
9. 31st
January 1953. Wind, high tide and
low pressure causes the North sea to flood land up to 5.6 metres above mean sea
level on Britain’s East Coast.
10. 23rd June – 27th August 1976
An unprecedentedly long summer heatwave without rain, especially in the
South West, led to drought, food shortages and a hike in food prices.
9 Weather Sources for Family Historians
1. 1. Parish Registers, Diaries
and Letters
www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk Search County Record Offices for the location
of parish registers (dating back as far as 1538 in some cases). These might
include notes on the weather from the locality in which you are interested.
Record Offices might also hold relevant diaries and letters. Viewed originals by
appointment on site.
2. Newspaper Reports
www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk The British Newspaper Archive - Daily and weekly newspapers from 1700 to the
present day. These can be searched according to date, newspaper title, locality
or keyword. Many pages can be viewed for free. They may give a record of recent
weather events and there may also be longer articles recording the results of
storm damage, heatwaves and the like.
3. Almanacs
www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/history/Almanacs,_Astrology_and_the_Origins_of_Weather.pdf
Almanacs,
Astrology and the Origins of Weather Reading University History Archive
This research project
catalogues almanacs from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries in three
departments at the University of Reading: the History Department, the Mr John
Lewis Collection at Special Collections and the Ephemera Collection at the Department
of Typography.
4. Diaries, Logbooks, Images, Journals
www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/library-and-archive National Meteorological Library and
Archives at the Meteorological Archive in Exeter.
This includes a comprehensive collection of data,
meteorological texts and journals, access to a collection of images,
photos and slides depicting all aspects of meteorology, a collection of private
weather diaries dating back to the early eighteenth century, marine weather
logbooks, a series of factsheets and on-site internet access
and access to online journals.
4. Data from UK Weather Stations
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/historic-station-data Select a weather station from around
the UK and view historic weather data including temperature and rainfall for
years dating back to 1961.
5. Ships’ Logs
www.oldweather.org (linked
to ACRE) is a citizen science project helping to transcribe Arctic, World War
2, whaling and worldwide weather observations made in ships’ logs since the
nineteenth century. Volunteer transcribers are welcome to join the projects.
6. Hydrographic and
Navigational Documents
www.gov.uk/guidance/the-ukho-archive
The UK Hydrographic Office
(UKHO) (f.1795). Contains hundreds of thousands of hydrographic and
navigational documents, such as Royal Navy Remarks books. Many of these include
detailed meteorological observations, from the seventeenth century onwards.
Highlights are surveys by Captain Cook and records relating to HMS Beagle and
Charles Darwin. Searches can be done in person at the archive in Taunton,
remotely or by payment of a research fee in advance to the archive.
7. 7. Weather
Data Rescue
https://www.idare-portal.org International
WMO Data Rescue Project
Umbrella site covering the many projects worldwide to collate
historic weather data and explaining how you might get involved,
8.
Ships in Australian
and New Zealand Waters
The Log of Logs (https://zenodo.org/record/6901#.XElxWZzgrQ0)
A freely available
online source which details weather conditions on ships travelling into
Australian and New Zealand waters between 1788 and 1990.
9.
Historical Weather Events of Interest
www.theweathernetwork.com/weatherhistory The Weather Network - This Day in Weather
History
Miscellaneous
articles on international weather events over the past two centuries including
Weather in the Trenches during the first World War, typhoons during World War
Two and weather over ten Christmases in history.
1. 1. 120 = The number of people who died as a result of accidents in
the city of Liverpool as a result of the Night of the Big Wind (6th January 1839).
2. 307 = Number of lives
lost in the UK in the North Sea Floods of 1953.
3. 150.3 Number of knots of the strongest ever gust of wind recorded in the UK (20th March 1986, Cairngorn Summit ).
4. 38.5 The highest number of degrees celsius ever
recorded in Britain (August
10, 2003, Brogdale, Faversham, Kent)
5. 7,452
million = The
number of cubic metres of water in Loch Ness which is equivalent to the amount
of rain that fell across Britain on Saturday 3rd October 2020, the wettest
October day on record.
Resources sidebar (200 words)
·
The Atmosphere Gallery
www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/see-and-do/atmosphere
London Science Museum, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2DD.
Through
exhibits as diverse as a real Antarctic ice core, tree rings and scientific
instruments, the gallery explains ‘how climate works, what it’s doing now and
what it might do next.’
·
Climate
Talks
www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/whatson/climate-talks
Online talks, panel discussions, Q &As and events (organised by the Science
Museum Group in 2021) connecting you with leaders, experts, activists and
campaigners as they discuss how to tackle the problems of communities in the
face of climate change.
·
Royal Meteorological Society
Royal Meteorological Society, 104 Oxford Road,
Reading, RG1 7LL
Founded in 1850, the Society promotes the importance of the weather and climate to interest groups and individuals of all kinds.
Patrick Nobbs, The Story of the British and Their Weather: From Frost Fairs to Indian Summers, Amberley Publishing, 2016.
The story
of the British people and their weather over many centuries looking in
particular at extreme weather events such as droughts, tidal waves, storms and
volcanoes.
·
Alistair Dawson, So Fair and Foul a Day: A History of Scotland’s
Weather and Climate, Birlinn, 2009.
A detailed account of Scotland’s past weather and climate conditions
from the arrival of its first settlers around 9,000 years ago to the present
day. Asks how our Scottish ancestors adapted to changes in the climate through
the centuries.
Keywords: weather, climate, history, Dr Rob Allan, climate change, meteorological, family history, genealogy, Britain, British, England, English, weather patterns, storm, snow, rain, Scotland, Scottish, parish register, ships' logs, almanacs, diaries, weather stations, temperature, air pressure, who do you think you are, ancestors, ancestry, genealogy, family history research, search my ancestry
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