William Hewett was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

officer noted for making the first comprehensive survey of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

and for his work on tides. Hewett went to sea in first in the war with France, from 1805-1811, and in China in 1811. He then joined as midshipman. From 1813 he served in the , and carried out a number of surveys on the coast of

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, including

Maranhão Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...

Ceará Ceará (, pronounced locally as or ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is the eighth-largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the ...

and

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (sta ...

. He was made an acting Lieutenant in 1814, which was confirmed in 1815. Hewett's first command was the surveying vessel HMS ''Protector''. From 1818 to 1830 he carried out surveys of the east coast of England, an area noted for dangerous and often shifting shoals. Hewett's description of the Leman and Ower banks, off the coast of

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

is given in full in the North Sea Sailing Directions of 1846. Other areas surveyed included Yarmouth Roads, the entrance to the River Humber, Lynn and Boston Deeps, The Gabbards and the Dudgeon. He also made recommendations for improvement of navigation of the coast, in particular regarding positioning of lighthouses and light vessels. He tested nautical inventions and trial compasses, reporting results to the Admiralty's committees. In 1830, Hewett was promoted to Commander, and in 1831 took command of HMS ''Fairy''. He began his great work of surveying the

to the Dutch coast and including the

Dogger Bank Dogger Bank (Dutch: ''Doggersbank'', German: ''Doggerbank'', Danish: ''Doggerbanke'') is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England. During the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass c ...

. Four chronometers were supplied for determining

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

. As well as normal surveying work, Hewett was engaged to test the theory of

William Whewell William Whewell ( ; 24 May 17946 March 1866) was an English polymath, scientist, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian, and historian of science. He was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. In his time as a student there, he achieved dist ...

who had suggested that between the Suffolk and Dutch coasts there should be a point at which there would be neither rise nor fall of the tide - what is now known as an

amphidromic point An amphidromic point, also called a tidal node, is a geographical location which has zero tidal amplitude for one harmonic constituent of the tide. The tidal range (the peak-to-peak amplitude, or the height difference between high tide and low ...

. This involved anchoring the ship and taking repeated soundings at the same location with lead and line, precautions being needed to allow for irregularities in the sea bed, and the effects of tidal flow. The data supported Whewell's prediction, with a rise of no more than . The North Sea survey was nearing completion, when, on 13 November 1840, sailing from near Orfordness to Yarmouth, ''Fairy'' was lost with all hands in a great gale. For several days there was doubt as to her fate.

Francis Beaufort Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer, rear admiral of the Royal Navy, and creator of the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale. Early life Francis Beaufort was descended f ...

, the hydrographer who had initiated the survey knew the ''Fairy'' to be a sound ship, and Hewett to be a fine seaman. He thought she might have run for shelter to Norway. A search was started and a reward was offered for information. But eventually it became clear that the ship was lost. A substantial fund was raised for the widows and children of those lost in the disaster. Hewett's widow had lost not only her husband, but a son and brother. The data from Hewett's ten years of work on the survey, including 30,000 soundings, were safe. Captain John Washington in completed the survey, and confirmed Hewett's tidal findings. The survey of the North Sea was published as three sheets, the first, of the southern part, as Admiralty Chart No. 1406 in 1842, and sheets II and III as Chart Nos. 2182 and 2248 in 1853-4.

References

{{authority control Royal Navy officers Deaths due to shipwreck at sea 1840 deaths British hydrographers