William Hutchinson (1715 probably in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

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– February 11, 1801 in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, England) was an English mariner, privateer, author, and inventor who developed parabolic reflectors for lighthouses and helped establish possibly the world's first

lifeboat station A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crew and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine. Lifeboats may be rigid, inflatable or rigid-inf ...

. Hutchinson was a seaman by the late 1730s, serving on an

East Indiaman East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vesse ...

trading in India and China. After service in the Royal Navy, he entered the employ of merchant and privateer

Fortunatus Wright Fortunatus Wright (c.1712–1757) was a British merchant and privateer, notable for his activities in the Mediterranean Sea during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Early life Wright was apparently a native of Wallas ...

. Hutchinson was captured by the French in 1746 in the ''Perl'', but by 1748 was master of the ''St. George'', which captured a French ship. A voyage in 1750 as captain of Wright's ''Lowestoft'' ended in shipwreck, and Hutchinson later claimed that only a timely rescue saved him from being eaten by the survivors in his lifeboat, as he had drawn the short straw. After time ashore in Liverpool, he later returned to privateering, captaining the 22-gun frigate ''Liverpool'' (1757-8). In 1759, Hutchinson was appointed dockmaster at Liverpool, and he held this and other positions at the harbour until 1793. In 1764 he started keeping detailed tide and weather records, and his data - the earliest continuous set of tidal records in the United Kingdom - contributed to the production of ''Holden's Tide Tables'', which continued in use until the 1970s. In 1777 he first published ''A Treatise on Practical Seamanship...'', which went through a number of editions and by 1794 was titled ''A Treatise on Naval Architecture...''; it contained Hutchinson's advice and ideas on seamanship, ship design, and other maritime subjects, as well as autobiographical material. Around 1763 Hutchinson installed what may have been the first parabolic reflector in a lighthouse in the new Leasowe Lighthouse, and later at a lighthouse in

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. He also experimented with oil-burning lights for lighthouses, invented a new rudder and a better quick-priming mechanism for large guns, and worked with Dr. Thomas Houlston on better methods of artificial respiration for drowning victims. He helped establish possibly the world's first lifeboat station, at

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. In 1789 Hutchinson helped found the Liverpool Marine Society for indigent seamen, widows of seamen, and their families; he contributed 100

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References

Biography of Hutchinson at National Oceanography Centre
*"Three Georges and one Richard Holden: The Liverpool tide table makers", Philip L. Woodworth, ''Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire'', Volume 151 (2002). {{DEFAULTSORT:Hutchinson, William 1716 births 1801 deaths English privateers People from Newcastle upon Tyne