Henry FosterFRS (1797 – 5 February 1831) was aBritish naval officer and scientist who took part in expeditions to both theArctic andAntarctic, and made notable scientific contributions to studies of thefigure of the earth and theearth's magnetic field.
Foster was the eldest son of the Rev. Henry Foster ofWoodplumpton,Lancashire. He joined the Royal Marines in 1812, serving first aboardHMS York.[1][2] In 1817 he joinedHMS Blossom in which he surveyed the mouth of theColumbia River. In 1819 he joined HMSCreole, and carried out a survey of the north shore of theRío de la Plata.[1] From 1820-1822 he served onHMS Conway, commanded byBasil Hall, first as midshipman, then as Master's mate, on a yoyage to South America. In his journal of the voyage, Hall refers to Foster as an "admirable surveyor". Foster carried out a survey of theharbour of Copiapó, and prepared a Hydrographical Memoir, with details of all the ports visited on the voyage.[3] During the voyage, Hall and Foster used aninvariable pendulum to determine the gravitational field at numerous locations. This allowed a calculation of theellipticity of the earth. The value they obtained, 1/301.77, or 0.003314 differs by just over 1% from the modern value of 0.003353. The results were published in thePhilosophical Transactions of 1823.[4]
In 1823, he served aboardHMS Griper under the command ofDouglas Clavering and with the astronomerEdward Sabine in a voyage toSvalbard and EastGreenland. He assisted in surveying and in more pendulum observations.[5][6]: 161 [7]: 81 He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 1824,[2][8]: 3 and was promoted to Lieutenant in the same year.[1]
In 1824 and 1825 he was part ofParry's third voyage for the discovery of aNorthwest Passage, as third Lieutenant ofHMS Hecla and assistant surveyor.[10]: 44 The Winter of 1824-1825 was spent in Port Bowen, on the east side ofPrince Regent Inlet. They set up an observatory, and Foster used a DollondTransit instrument to determine their longitude using the method of moon-culminating stars. He published a comparison of this method withlunar distances andoccultations of stars by the moon.[11][12] During the expedition he continued his pendulum experiments, and also made many observations on theEarth's magnetic field. The results were published in 1826 as a complete issue of thePhilosophical Transactions.[13] For this work he was awarded the Royal Society'sCopley Medal in 1827. On the day the medal was delivered, Foster was promoted to Commander, and the assignment to his next command, in the South Altlantic, was confirmed.[14]
In 1826Captain Basil Hall had suggested a naval expedition "for the express purpose of research".[15][16] This suggestion was taken up by theBoard of Longitude and the Royal Society. The Board sponsored the voyage, and a Royal Society committee includingFrancis Beaufort and the astronomerJohn Herschel contributed to the programme of investigation.[6]: 239 [17] The goals were to continue the programme of pendulum exeriments, to determine the longitudes of various ports and important landmarks, and to carry out observations of meteorology, geomagnetism, and ocean currents.[18]
The ship chosen for the British Naval Expedition to the South Atlantic, commanded by Foster, wasHMS Chanticleer, and the voyage lasted from 1828-1831. Their route took them across the Atlantic to the island ofFernando de Noronha off the N.E coast of Brazil, then toRio de Janeiro,Montevideo,Staten Island, and then toCape Horn and theWollaston Islands, which he named after the British chemistWilliam Hyde Wollaston. They then sailed south to theSouth Shetland Islands, just north of theAntarctic Peninsula, and at that time the most southerly land known.[19]: v1:135 Foster andLieutenant Kendall landed and exploredDeception Island.[20][19]: v1:144-165
They then crossed back over the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope, where they rated their chronometers, then back once more to Fernando de Noronha viaSaint Helena andAscension Island. On Fernando de Noronha, they were given considerable assistance by the Governor, who let Foster use part of his own house for the pendulum experiments.[21] They then sailed along the north coast of South America toDarien to establish the positions of locations on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, transporting chronometers across the isthmus and using rockets as time signals. While carrying out these observations, Foster drowned in theChagres River in 1831 after slipping and falling overboard.[19]: v2:190-197 After Foster's death, Chanticleer made a few more observations inPorto Bello,Jamaica,Bermuda, and theAzores, before returning to Falmouth where she arrived on 17 May 1831.[19]: v2:208
The narrative of the voyage was written by the ship's surgeon, W.H.B. Webster, and published in 1834[19] It was considered very important because of his observations on the southern hemisphere. It was translated into French and republished in 1849.[2] The results of the pendulum experiments were published by the astronomerFrancis Baily, also in 1834.[22]
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