Life
1774-1857 [family orig. de Beafort, reaching England in 1700s]; son of Daniel Augustus Beaufort (1739-1821) and grandson of a clergyman who moved to Ireland with his friend the viceroy, later returning to England in 1779; b. Navan, Co. Meath; family returned to Ireland, 1784; ed. by his father and grandfather; entered Military and Marine Academy in Dublin, 1785; joined East India Company ship Vansittart, Feb. 1789, sailing under Capt. Lestock Wilson, whose daughter he married and with whom 6 children; afterwards shipwrecked; joined HMS Aquilon; badly wounded in capturing Spanish ship at sea, carrying shot in lung to his death; appt. navy lieutenant 1796; commander, 1800; assisted Richard Lovell Edgeworth,
his brother-in-law, in building telegraph line from Dublin to Galway,
1803; conducted extremely detailed surveys incl. Rio de la Plata, 1807; coast of Turkey, 1811-12, being was wounded in the process; appt. post-captain, 1810; published the
result as Karmania: A Brief Account of the South Coast of Asia Minor
and of the Remains of Antiquity (1817); appt. chief hydrographer to Navy,
1829-55; Beaufort Scale of wind measurement adopted by Admiralty, 1838,
and internationally, 1874; served on royal commissions on pilotage, 1845,
and waterways of Britain, 1848; prepared atlas used by Society for Diffusion
of Useful Knowledge; FRS and FRAS; rear-admiral on retired list, 1846;
KCB 1848; d. 17 Dec.
DNB DIH
Criticism
Stephen Flanagan, ‘Legends of Irish Life: No. 19, Francis Beaufort’, Magill (May 2003), pp.14-15
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Notes
Incest?: his sexual rapport with a sister who kept house after the death
of his wife came to light after his at his own death in diaries recording
remorse at having repeatedly ‘resorted’ to her. (Q. source; and check kin.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)