John Henry Lefroy

John Henry Lefroy

Sir John Henry Lefroy, KCMG, CB, FRS, (January 28, 1817 – April 11, 1890) was a British military man and later colonial administrator who also distinguished himself with his scientific studies of the Earth's magnetism.

Biography

Lefroy entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in London in 1831 and became a 2nd lieutenant of the Royal Artillery in 1834. When the British government launched a project under the direction of Edward Sabine to study terrestrial magnetism, he was chosen to set up and supervise the observatory on Saint Helena. He embarked on September 25 1839, for Saint Helena, and carried out his task throughout the following year. In 1842, Lefroy was sent to Toronto as the superintendent of the new observatory built there as part of that project. He immediately began planning a field expedition to the Canadian northwest to measure magnetism there. With an assistant and a Hudson's Bay Company brigade, he travelled more than 5,000 miles in the Northwest from May 1843 to November 1844, taking measurements at over 300 stations in an attempt to map the geo-magnetic activity of British North America and locate the North Magnetic Pole. They followed the Mackenzie River as far as Fort Good Hope and visited Fort Simpson in the west. On June 9 1848, Lefroy was made a member of the Royal Society.

Lefroy remained in Toronto until 1853, continuing his observations and managing the observatory. On April 16 1846, he married his first wife Emily Merry, a daughter of John Beverley Robinson; they would have two daughters and two sons. Lefroy also helped found the Royal Canadian Institute, where he was the first vice-president in 1851/52 and then president in 1852/53. Before his return to London, he managed the transfer of the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory to the provincial government.

Upon his return to London in April 1853, Lefroy held various office positions in the British Army. He became involved in the army reform, and in that function corresponded from 1855 to 1868 also with Florence Nightingale. Later, he became Inspector General of army schools and finally in 1868 director of the Ordnance Office. In 1859, his wife died, and the following year, he married his second wife Charlotte Anna Dundas on September 12. When he retired from the army in 1870 with the honorary rank of Major General, he entered the Colonial Service (now the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and was appointed Governor of Bermuda from 1871 to 1877. He left this position due to illness and returned to England, but later served as Governor of Tasmania from October 21 1880 to December 7 1881.

Lefroy was not related to the 1881 railway murderer Percy Lefroy whose real last name was Mapleton.The Mapleton parents, without Lefroy's permission, christened their son Percy Lefroy Mapleton and when arrested, Mapleton gave his name as Lefroy.

John Henry Lefroy was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1870, and knighted in 1877 (KCMG).

Legacy

Mount Lefroy in the Rocky Mountains named after John Henry Lefroy, although it appears unclear if James Hector of the Palliser Expedition named it in 1858, or if the name is due to George Mercer Dawson, 1884.

A rare painting of Paul Kane showing John Henry Lefroy, which had been in possession of the Lefroy family in England, garnered a record price at an auction at Sotheby's in Toronto on February 25 2002, when Canadian billionaire Kenneth Thomson won the bid at C$5,062,500 including fees (US$3,172,567.50 at the time). Thomson subsequently donated the painting as part of his Thomson Collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Selected publications

*Lefroy, J. H.: "Magnetical and meteorological observations at Lake Athabasca and Fort Simpson by Captain J.H. Lefroy and at Fort Confidence in Great Bear Lake by Sir John Richardson"; London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855.
*Lefroy, J. H.: " [http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/cocoon/peel/217.html Diary of a magnetic survey of a portion of the Dominion of Canada, chiefly in the North-Western Territories, executed in the years 1842-1844] "; London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1883.

External links

* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=5650 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"] URL last accessed January 11, 2006.
* [http://www.bermuda-online.org/canada.htm Lefroy and the Bermudas] . URL last accessed January 11, 2006.
* [http://www.peakfinder.com/peakfinder.ASP?PeakName=mount+lefroy Mount Lefroy] . URL last accessed January 11, 2006.
* [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/trackdoc.asp?id=784&pId=1727 Royal Society memberships] . URL last accessed January 11, 2006.
* [http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles_archive/articles/may02/kane0502.htm "Maine Antique Digest", May 2002] on the auction of the Kane painting.
* [http://ontarioplaques.com/Plaque_Toronto112.html Ontario Plaques - Sir John Henry Lefroy 1817-1890]

Further reading

*Lefroy, J.H. In Search of the Magnetic North: A Soldier- Surveyor’s Letters from the North-west, 1843-1955, edited by George F.G. Stanley, The MacMillan Company of Canada Limited, 1955.

*Lefroy, Autobiography of General Sir J.H. Lefroy published posthumously by his second wife "for private circulation only", London: Pardon and Sons Ltd, 1895, of which an [http://folklore.library.ualberta.ca/dspCitation.cfm?ID=407 excerpt] is available online.

*Loffroy of Cambray, A Supplement, London: Privately printed by Ebenezer and Son, Ltd., 1961.

*Lefroy, J.H. Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermuda or Somer Islands, 1515-1685, compiled from the colonial records and other original sources., The Bermuda Historical Society, the Bermuda national Trust, 1981.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать реферат

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Henry Lefroy — Sir Henry Bruce Lefroy KCMG (24 March 1854–19 March 1930) was Premier of Western Australia from June 1917 until April 1919.Lefroy was born in Perth, Western Australia on 24 March 1854. His father was Anthony O Grady Lefroy, Colonial Treasurer of… …   Wikipedia

  • Lefroy — is the name of a prominent family in early Western Australian history. Members of the family include: * Henry Lefroy (1854 ndash;1930), 11th Premier of Western Australia * his father Anthony O Grady Lefroy (1816 ndash;1897), Colonial Treasurer of …   Wikipedia

  • John Scaddan — Infobox President | name =John Scaddan nationality =Australian order =11th Premier of Western Australia term start =7 October 1911 term end =27 July 1916 predecessor =Frank Wilson successor =Frank Wilson birth date =birth date|1876|8|4|df=y birth …   Wikipedia

  • John Smith (explorer) — For other people named John Smith, see John Smith (disambiguation). Captain John Smith, after an early portrait by Simon de Passe, 18th century Captain John Smith (c. January 1580 – 21 June 1631) Admiral of New England was an English soldier,… …   Wikipedia

  • John Smith of Jamestown — Captain Sir John Smith (c. January 1580–June 21 1631) Admiral of New England was an English soldier, sailor, and author. He is remembered for his role in establishing the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia …   Wikipedia

  • Mount Lefroy — The mountain at Abbot Pass Elevation 3,423 m (11,230 ft)  …   Wikipedia

  • Henry Crawford — (portrayed by Joseph Beattie) with his sister, Mary Crawford, in the 2007 BBC television drama Mansfield Park Gender …   Wikipedia

  • John Willoughby — For other people named John Willoughby, see John Willoughby (disambiguation). John Willoughby Dominic Cooper as John Willoughby in the 2008 BBC televi …   Wikipedia

  • Anthony O'Grady Lefroy — For other people named Anthony Lefroy, see Anthony Lefroy (disambiguation). Anthony O Grady Lefroy Anthony O Grady Lefroy CMG (14 March 1816–21 January 1897), often known as O Grady Lefroy, was an important government official in Western… …   Wikipedia

  • Thomas Langlois Lefroy — Infobox Person name = Thomas Langlois Lefroy caption = Thomas Langlois Lefroy 1855 by W. H. Mote birth date = birth date|1776|1|8|df=yes death date = death date and age|1869|5|4|1776|1|8|df=yesThomas Langlois Lefroy (8 January 1776 – 4 May 1869)… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”