SCORESBY, William (1789-1857), English arctic explorer and physicist, was born near Whitby, Yorkshire, on 5th October 1789. His father, also named William, who achieved distinction as an arctic whaler, was the son of a farmer near Crompton, Lancashire, where he was born on 3d May 1760. He went to sea when he was twenty years of age, and became one of the most prominent and successful, as well as daring, of arctic whale-fishers. In 1823 he retired with an ample competency, and died in 1829. Young Scoresby made his first voyage with his father to Greenland in 1800, when he was only eleven years of age. On his return, up to 1803, he diligently pursued his education, acquiring a very fair knowledge of mathematics and navigation. From 1803 he was his father’s constant companion to the whale-fishery. On 25th May 1806, as chief officer of the “Resolution,” he succeeded in reaching 81° 30' N. in 19° E. long., the farthest point north attained by any navigator up to that date. On his return, during the following winter, Scoresby attended the natural philosophy and chemistry classes in Edinburgh university, as he did again in 1809, when he added several other subjects. In his voyage of 1807 he commenced, as in all subsequent voyages he continued, the study of the meteorology and natural history of the polar regions; among the earlier results are his original observations on snow crystals. In 1809 Professor Jameson of Edinburgh brought Scoresby’s arctic papers before the Wernerian Society of that city, of which he was at once elected a member. Soon after attaining his majority, in 1811, Scoresby was promoted to the command of the “Resolution,” and in the same year married the daughter of a shipbroker. In 1813 he changed the “Resolution” for the “Esk,” in both ...vessels bringing home large and profitable captures. In his voyage of 1813 Scoresby ascertained that the temperature of the polar ocean is warmer at considerable depths than it is on the surface. Each subsequent spring found Scoresby in search of whales, and no less eagerly of fresh additions to scientific knowledge. His letters of this period to Sir Joseph Banks no doubt gave the first impulse to the modern search for the northwest passage. In 1819 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and among other papers of the year was one communicated to the Royal Society of London through Sir Joseph Banks, “On the Anomaly in the Variation of the Magnetic Needle,” touching upon a subject of the first scientific importance. In 1820 appeared Scoresby’s History and Description of the Arctic Regions, in which he gathers up the results of his own observation, as well as those of previous navigators, and which still remains a standard authority. In his voyage of 1822 to Greenland, among other scientific work, Scoresby surveyed 400 miles of the east coast, between 69° 30' and 72° 30' N., with so much accuracy that the Government expeditions of the next year were unable to make any substantial correction, although they attempted to ignore his work. This was the last of Scoresby’s arctic voyages. On his return he found his wife dead, and this event, acting upon his naturally pious spirit along with other influences, decided him to enter the church. After two years of residence in Cambridge, he in 1825 was ordained and on 17th July was appointed curate of Bass-ingby. Meantime had appeared at Edinburgh, in 1823, his Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery, including Researches and Discoveries on the Eastern Coast of Greenland. The faithful and successful discharge of his clerical duties at Bassingby, in the mariners’ chapel at Liverpool, at Exeter, and at Bradford did not prevent Scoresby from taking as much interest in science as he did during his whaling voyages. In 1824 the Royal Society elected him a fellow, and the Paris Academy of Sciences an honorary corresponding member. From the first he was an active member and official of the British Association, to which he made several important contributions, one being “An Exposition of some of the Laws and Phenomena of Magnetic Induction.” To the progress of terrestrial magnetism especially Scoresby is recognized as having largely contributed. Of the sixty papers which follow his name in the Royal Society list many are more or less connected with this department of research. But his observations extended into many other departments, including certain branches of optics. In order to obtain additional data for his theories on magnetism he made a voyage to Australia in 1856, the results of which were published in a posthumous work,— 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. Scoresby 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, a list of which, as well as of his many scientific papers, is appended to the Life of William Scoresby by his nephew, Dr R. E. Scoresby-Jackson (1861). In 1850 he published a work on the Franklin expedition, urging the prosecution of the search for the missing ships, and giving the valuable results of his own experience in arctic navigation. Scoresby was twice married after the death of his first wife,—to Miss Elizabeth Fitzgerald in 1828, and in 1849 to Miss Georgina Kerr. After his third marriage Scoresby built a villa at Torquay, where he spent the remainder of his life, and where he died, 21st March 1857. He was a man of simple but deep piety, amiable, cheerful, and guileless.
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