William
Hutchinson was born in 1715 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Following his
father's death he was compelled at the age of eleven to seek employment as a
cabin boy on a Newcastle collier working the coal trade from North East England
to London. Huchinson served his time as a ‘forecastle man’ on board an East
Indiaman in 1738–9, and making the voyage to China; he was also mate of ‘a
bomb's tender in Hyères Bay’ with the Royal Navy about 1743.
His later
experiences included a time cruising in the Mediterranean, in the employ of
Fortunatus Wright, merchant and privateer.
A privateer or "corsair" was a private person or ship
authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign vessels
during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors
without having to spend treasury resources or commit naval officers. They were
of great benefit to a smaller naval power or one facing an enemy dependent on
trade: they disrupted commerce and pressured the enemy to deploy warships to
protect merchant trade against commerce raiders. The cost was borne by
investors hoping to profit from prize money earned from captured cargo and
vessels. The proceeds would be distributed among the privateer's investors,
officers, and crew. Hutchinson was himself in command of a privateer in 1747.
and in 1750 Hutchinson commanded the Lowestoft, an old twenty-gun frigate sold
out of the navy and bought by Wright, and in her traded to the West Indies and
the Mediterranean. In 1747 he took command of the West Indiaman Perl.
Hutchinson was described as ‘the ablest and boldest of the Liverpool
privateers' and he remained a privateer up to July 1758. He was made Freeman of
the town of Liverpool in 1755 ‘in consideration of his efforts for better
supplying the town with sea fish.
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| Bidston Lighthouse and Observatory |
In 1763
Hutchinson set up the first parabolic reflectors on the Bidston lighthouse.
These were made up from sheets of tin soldered together and lined with pieces
of mirror-glass; he afterwards had larger reflectors made, up to 12 feet in
diameter, plastered inside to a smooth bowl and similarly lined with glass.
These reflectors were so successful that Hutchinson was asked to procure
examples for the Dublin harbour authorities' lighthouses.
Prompted by a
friend, the astronomer James Ferguson, Hutchinson used his extensive maritime
experience for improving access to the dock by observing and recording the
first sustained set of tidal and meteorological measurements in the UK. In 1764
he began to observe the times and heights of tides flowing at the old dock
gates in Liverpool, he did this for almost thirty years without a gap, night
and day and under all conditions, from a marked stone wall at the entrance to
the dock and fixed a tide-pole in the bed of the river itself, to gauge the
lowest point of the ebb. He attributed the difference between his observed
measurements and the predictions given by tide-clocks to lunar effects which
had not previously been properly considered. Hutchinson's data was incorporated
in Holden's Tide Tables, published in 1773. His record of tides, barometer,
weather, and winds, 1768–93, was presented to Liverpool Public Library.
Hutchinson was
also one of the founding members of the Liverpool pilot committee, founded in
1766. In 1779, he and some companions set out on horseback to find a suitable
site for the pilot boats. Riding across Anglesey they identified a cove which
they named Pilot's Bay. He also subscribed 100 guineas to the Liverpool Marine
Society, established in 1789, to care for needy mariners and their families. He
died unmarried on 11 February 1801 in Liverpool and was buried in St. Thomas
churchyard, Liverpool.
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| St Thomas's Church |
Visitors to
Liverpool ONE will see an observation window, set into the pavement, above the
Old Dock. They may not however have heard of the gentleman who lived and worked
only a matter of yards away. Hutchinson died 7 February 1801 aged 85 and
interred in St.Thomas's churchyard in Park Lane, Liverpool. This plot was
removed as part of the 1885 clearance. The former site of St Thomas’s Church
has been created into a memorial garden to honour some of the people buried
there.
Hutchinson in
commemorated in the pavement of the Liverpool One waterfront development,
Fountains in the development and a 'lunar pool' convey a tidal theme, while
etched into the pavement alongside the fountains can be found a set of numbers
which refer to measurements of the heights and times of high water
made by William Hutchinson.
Links
Sources
Liverpool Cenral
Library
Liverpool
Records Office
Proudman
Oceanographic
National
Archives
By Robert F
Edwards
