Henry Raper (1799 – 6 January 1859) was a
British Royal Naval lieutenant who became a nineteenth-century authority on
navigation. Amongst his achievements was his quantification of the unreliability of a key
longitudinal measurement,
lunar distance, when taken at different times. One early beneficiary of Raper's research was
Robert FitzRoy, whose second expedition was made famous by the work of his travelling companion,
Charles Darwin.
Raper is primarily remembered, however, for his seminal work ''The Practice of Navigation and Nautical Astronomy'', for which he was awarded the
Founder's Medal of the
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...
in 1841. According to his memorial at St Peter & St Paul's Church, in
Dinton, Buckinghamshire, it was "a work universally adopted by the naval service".
Raper died on 6 January 1859 at
Torquay in
Devon,
England.
See also
*
Bibliography
* Henry Raper, ''The Practice of Navigation and Nautical Astronomy'' (Third edition published by Bate, 1849)
1799 births
1859 deaths
History of navigation
Royal Navy officers
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