Alexander George Findlay (1812–1875) was an English geographer and hydrographer. His services to geography have been compared with those of
Aaron Arrowsmith
Aaron Arrowsmith (1750–1823) was an English cartographer, engraver and publisher and founding member of the Arrowsmith family of geographers.
Life
He moved to Soho Square, London from Winston, County Durham, when about twenty years of age, a ...
and
August Heinrich Petermann
Augustus Heinrich Petermann (18 April 182225 September 1878) was a German cartographer.
Early years
Petermann was born in Bleicherode, Germany. When he was 14 years old he started grammar school in the nearby town of Nordhausen. His mother wa ...
.
Life
Findlay was born in London, 6 January 1812, a descendant of the Findlays of
Arbroath, Forfarshire. His grandfather was a shipowner there, who moved his business to the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
. Findlay's father, Alexander Findlay was one of the original fellows of the
Royal Geographical Society.
The son Alexander George Findlay devoted himself to the compilation of geographical and hydrographical works. On the death of
John Purdy, the hydrographer, in 1843, he took a leading position. In 1844 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and was a member of its council and committees. His researches in
meteorology
Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
attracted the attention of
Robert FitzRoy
Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy (5 July 1805 – 30 April 1865) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and a scientist. He achieved lasting fame as the captain of during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, FitzRoy's second expedition to Tierra de ...
.
On the death of Richard Holland Laurie of
Laurie & Whittle, the London geographical and print publisher, in 1858, Findlay took over the business. In 1885, when Van Keulen of Amsterdam, founded in 1678, was dissolved, it became the oldest active firm in Europe for the publication of charts and nautical works.
Findlay died at
Dover on 3 May 1875.
Works
Findlay's atlases of ''Ancient and Comparative Geograph'' were known internationally. In 1851 he completed the revision of
Richard Brookes
Richard Brookes (fl. 1721 – 1763) was an English physician and author of compilations and translations on medicine, surgery, natural history, and geography, most of which went through several editions.
Life
He was at one time a rural practit ...
's ''Gazetteer'', and the same year published his first major work, on the ''Coasts and Islands of the Pacific Ocean'', in 2 vols. of 1,400 pages.
Findlay issued six large nautical directories, which have proved invaluable to the maritime world. They included ''The North Atlantic Ocean'', ''The South Atlantic Ocean'', ''The Indian Ocean'', ''Indian Archipelago, China, and Japan'', ''The South Pacific Ocean'', and ''The North Pacific Ocean''.
Sir Henry Rawlinson
Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, KLS (5 April 1810 – 5 March 1895) was a British East India Company army officer, politician and Orientalist, sometimes described as the Father of Assyriology. His son, also Henry, was to bec ...
commented that these works had become standard authorities; he also executed a series of charts widely used by the mercantile marine. The
Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...
awarded Findlay its medal for his dissertation on ''The English Lighthouse System''. Subsequently, he published ''Lighthouses and Coast Fog Signals of the World''.
He also wrote a paper on the connection of Lake Tanganyika with the Nile, accompanying it by a comparative series of maps relating to the northern end of the lake. Findlay served on various committees appointed by the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, and contributed the following papers to section E: at Liverpool in 1853, ''On the Currents of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans''; Exeter, 1869, ''On the Gulf Stream, and its supposed influence upon the Climate of N.-W. Europe''.
Findlay's publications came to 10,000 pages. He contributed several papers to the ''Journal'' of the Royal Geographical Society, the ''Transactions of the Royal United Service Institution'', and the ''Transactions of the Society of Arts''. At the time of
Sir John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...
's loss he sifted all the possible routes; and as a member of the Arctic committee of the Royal Geographical Society worked on the arguments which induced the government to send out the
Alert and Discovery expedition of 1875. Findlay devoted much time to the labours of his friend
David Livingstone
David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...
, in central Africa, and he also investigated the
sources of the Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered the longest rive ...
. For the record of the
Burton and Speke explorations during 1858–59 he constructed a map of the routes traversed. In 1870 the Società Geografica Italiana elected him one of its foreign honorary members.
References
Archive Alexander Findlay Royal museum of central Africa
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Findlay, Alexander George
1812 births
1875 deaths
Publishers (people) from London
English hydrographers
English geographers
19th-century geographers
19th-century English businesspeople