Robert Moresby was a distinguished captain of the British Royal Navy. He was also an excellent maritime surveyor and draughtsman.

Capt. Moresby, thought to have died in 1863, is a figure who has now all but disappeared from the records. But his vitally important feat in charting the dangerous waters of the Red Sea and some archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean, like the Maldives, Laccadives and Chagos in the 1820s and 30s ensured that the route from Europe to the East Indies became viable for the new steam vessels. Location of the Red Sea The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. ... Lakshadweep is a Union Territory of India. ... islands in the Indian Ocean, lying 500 km south of the Maldives. ...

The East India Route and the New Era of Trade and Communication

In the nineteenth century, the sea route between the Mediterranean and India would come to play a key role in a new era of communication. Already before the opening of the Suez Canal, industrial Britain, had a rapidly expanding economy, and needed improved communication with British India, with its raw materials and imperial requirements. Crucial in the development of the Red Sea route between the two countries was the harnessing of steam power, most notably in the form of the marine steam engine. A further vital factor in this revolution in trade and transport was the charting of the hazardous waterway commissioned by the British East India Company and carried out by the little-known naval commander Robert Moresby and his colleague Thomas Elwon, both of the Bombay Marine, later the Indian Navy. Ships moored at El Ballah during transit Egypt: Site of Suez Canal (top). ... Location of the Red Sea The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. ...

The Lack of Accurate Maps

The Red sea is full of navigational hazards, but at that crucial time, reliable charts were not available. Preliminary surveys of the Red Sea route had been published in 1826-27 by James Horsburgh, hydrographer to the East India Company. Horsburgh's work provided a good foundation, but also highlighted the limitations' of existing knowledge. By this time, the marine steam engine appeared to be racing to the rescue of British communications with India; the engine, first tested on Scottish lochs and American rivers, was by 1826 attempting the Cape route to India. East India Company was the name of several historic European companies chartered with the monopoly of trading with Asia for their respective countries. ... // The term steam engine may also refer to an entire railroad steam locomotive. ...

In that year a 479-ton wooden paddle steamer, HMS Enterprize, steamed (mostly sailed in fact) from London to Calcutta. Its progress was particularly noted by two individuals - a river pilot named Thomas Waghorn who was impressed by the steamer's steady progress against the wind up the Hooghly river to Calcutta, and indirectly by the Governor of Bombay, Mountstuart Elphinstone. A year later Elphinstone, together with the secretary of the Calcutta government and his wife, Mr and Mrs Lushington, chose to return to England via the Red Sea, sailing on a cramped little brig, HMS Palinurus. This involved disembarking at Qusayr and crossing the desert to the Nile in the customary four days. Back in Britain Elphinstone joined the campaign, promoted by the new commander of the Bombay Marine (re-named the Indian Navy in 1832), Sir Charles Malcolm, to introduce steam to the Red Sea, which would enable boats to navigate up the Gulf of Suez against those tiresome northerlies. The Nile (Arabic: ‎, translit: , Ancient Egyptian iteru, Coptic piaro or phiaro) is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river, though not the most voluminous, in the world. ... The Indian Navy is the naval branch of the armed forces of India. ...

Waghorn and other entrepreneurs in Britain and Egypt were meanwhile working at linking Mediterranean steam crossings (already overcoming its infuriating calms) with the Red Sea via an 'overland route' through Egypt. An experimental vessel, HMS Hugh Lindsay, was built in Bombay, powered by engines sent from England, and launched for Suez in 1829; a collier loaded with Welsh coal (sent via the Cape) went ahead, convoyed by a sailing brig, HMS Thetis. Captained by a real steam enthusiast, James Wilson, she made it to Suez in thirty-four days but the collier was later wrecked on a reef, a fate which narrowly missed befalling the Thetis, on a reef subsequently named after her, just south of Yanbu on the north Arabian coast. This article or section should be merged with Mumbai Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) is the worlds most populous conurbation, and is the sixth most populous agglomeration in the world. ... SUEZ (Euronext: SZE, NYSE: SZE) is a leading French-based multinational corporation, with operations primarily in water, electricity and natural gas supply, and waste management. ... NASA photograph of Yanbu al Bahr Yanbu al Bahr (arabic: ينبع البحر spring by the sea), also known simply as Yanbu, Yambo, or Yenbo, is a major Red Sea port in the Al Madinah province of western Saudi Arabia. ...

Robert Moresby Begins the Survey of the Red Sea

Drastic measures were clearly needed to prevent these disasters and two small brigs were made ready for cartographical work despite the reluctance of the East India Company in London to provide finance. One was HMS Palinurus, the same vessel that had transported the Elphinstone party to Qusayr in 1827. She was captained by Robert Moresby, who had already gained experience from having surveyed the Laccadive Islands. The second vessel was HMS Benares, under the captaincy of Thomas Elwon. Each had a complement of around ten officers. Initially Moresby was appointed to the far less known northern half of the Red Sea. His base was at Suez, seen as the terminus of Waghorn's much trumpeted Overland Route, which connected the Mediterranean with the Indian Ocean via Egypt and the Red Sea. Elwon was despatched to the south, but in 1833 he was transferred to the Persian Gulf leaving Moresby to complete the full survey. East India Company was the name of several historic European companies chartered with the monopoly of trading with Asia for their respective countries. ... Lakshadweep is a Union Territory of India. ...

From 1829 to 1833 Moresby never left the Red Sea.

Survey of the Red Sea and its Hazards

Between 1929 and 1933 Robert Moresby completed a full survey of the Red Sea with HMS 'Palinurus' and HMS 'Benares'. Moresby began his survey in the north, first in the two Gulfs and along the Arabian coast south to Jiddah, then north-south down the African coast. However, his Sailing Directions for the Red Sea, published in 1841, charts the Sea from south to north. Every detail is noted, not only reefs, harbours and anchorages but also provisions, the essential water (often awful) and fuel supplies. A fuller and more graphic narrative of the upper half of the survey is contained in Lieutenant J.R. Wellsted's account, in the second volume of his Travels in Arabia (1838). Wellsted had joined, the Palinurus in 1830. The reefs were mostly surveyed from local boats with local pilots. Location of the Red Sea The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. ...

This survey was an arduous task and the ships suffered. The Palinurus had been forced to return to Bombay in 1830 for refitting after surveying the Gulf of Suez, while the Benares had to be sent back in 1831 in a shattered state, the leaky tub caught forty-two times on coral reefs). This heated funnel of reef-bound sea as Moresby referred to it, took its toll on the surveyors; great dangers and privations were inseparable from such a service, Moresby noted. The summer months were particularly punishing when temperatures reached the high 40°s and the Benares seems to have been especially vulnerable. It was rare for the full complement of officers to be functioning and Elwon himself was frequently ill. In 1833 the assistant surveyor, Lieutenant Pinching, died of smallpox off Aden where he was buried. This article or section should be merged with Mumbai Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) is the worlds most populous conurbation, and is the sixth most populous agglomeration in the world. ...

Starting from Suez, as the nearest point to Cairo for those crossing Egypt by the Overland Route, Moresby worked a system of triangulation down each shore. At Suez itself he noted, provisions are plentiful and good - oranges, pears, apples, plums in season. And there were plenty of fine cabbages! In the Gulf there were some nasty spots whose names indicate the hazards - Moresby Shoal for instance, and Felix Jones 'Patches'. Another danger spot was the Daedalus Shoal at the entrance to the Gulf, which has a light on it to this day.

Moresby also surveyed the Gulf of Aqaba, a narrow deep waterway between high mountains that funnels high northerly winds. It was such winds, so frequently mentioned in the Sailing Directions, which the steam engine was supposed to overcome. The six-kilometre-wide entrance, at the Straits of Tiran, was bad enough - wrecks are strewn over the rocks there even today. In the Gulf itself on one occasion the Palinurus was blown off her anchorage three times and only managed to stay put with fifty fathoms of chain on each of two anchors. Wellsted describes Moresby on one occasion springing up the rigging to spot reefs which everyone had declared were just wash from clashing tides; they lowered anchors to three fathoms but the vessel swung round and suddenly there was no bottom under the stem at eighty fathoms. In Wellsted's opinion four years in the Red Sea was nothing like as bad as 150 kilometres in the Gulf of Aqaba. On shore the crew helped locals repair their boats and Moresby going for a walk along the beach was accosted by fishermen whose boat had been thus mended, who insisted on his accepting a present of two sheep and a bag of dollars.

Heading out of the Gulf and down the Arabian coast a particular danger spot was Zabarga Island (also known as St John's or Emerald Island because of ancient peridot mines); Palinurus was caught in a fearsome gale and only avoided being driven on to the rocks by hooking a kedge anchor on to a hole in the reef. An uncomfortable night was spent by all. Moresby always records the availability or otherwise of fuel, provisions, water, attitude of locals: availability of water was sometimes dependent on their being able to roll the ship's casks to and from the source.

Onshore reception was variable owing to the long tradition of piracy in the northern end of the Red Sea. Moresby warned that should a ship touch at any part of the Red Sea not frequented by Europeans (for water, etc.), great caution ought to be adopted, to guard against treachery from the various predatory tribes inhabiting the borders of the sea. The coastal plain had been devastated earlier in the century by Wahhabi puritan Muslims from Central Arabia followed by Egyptian invasion - none of this good news for non-Muslims. At Sharm Ghabur (sharm the local Arabic for a channel through the reefs), where Muslim pilgrims traditionally donned their pilgrim's garb, water and wood were cheap, and dates excellent, but the bedu were not to be trusted. They were feared throughout the sea for ferocity and treachery, writes Moresby, so that it is dangerous to land on that stretch of shore. Wahhabism (sometimes spelled Wahabbism or Wahabism) is a movement of Islam named after Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792). ... The Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula is a mainly desert peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia and an important part of the greater Middle East. ...

During the survey of the Red Sea Robert Moresby was smitten by intermittent fevers.

Exhausted by four years of surveying, Moresby returned to Bombay in 1833. Meanwhile the valiant Palinurus sailed on to survey the southern coast of Arabia under Captain Haines (later the first British official in charge of Aden).

The Red Sea charts of Moresby and Elwon were drafted by Felix Jones to a scale of one inch to the mile (in the trickier parts, ten inches to the mile), and published in 1834.

Other Important Surveys

After the completion of the Red Sea Survey, Robert Moresby was sent to chart various coral islands lying across the track of India-to-Cape trade. In 1834-36 Moresby, assisted by Lieutenants Christopher and Young, undertook the difficult cartography of the Maldive Islands, drawing the first accurate maritime charts of this complicated Indian Ocean atoll group (Admiralty Charts). These charts were printed as three separate large maps by the Hydrographic Service of the Royal Navy. Moresby's survey of the Atolls of the Maldives was followed by the Chagos Archipelago and part of the Saya das Malha bank south-east of the Seychelles. Cartography or mapmaking (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study, practice, science and art of making maps or globes. ... The Republic of Maldives is a country consisting territorially of a group of atolls in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India. ... Geographic distribution of the Natural Atolls of the Maldives Geographically, the Maldives are formed by a number of natural atolls plus a few islands and isolated reefs which form a pattern stretching from 7 degrees 10 North to 0 degrees 45 South. ... Map of the Chagos Archipelago (British Indian Ocean Territory) The Chagos Archipelago is a group of six atolls with more than 600 individual tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, that lies about 500 km (300 miles) due south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, and 1600 km (1000 miles...

In 1838 Moresby's health finally obliged him to give up surveying. In 1842 he was employed by Peninsular & Oriental, better known as P&O, to command their brand new and most luxurious steamer, HMS Hindostan, on her maiden voyage from Southampton to Calcutta. Subsequently the Hindostan was employed on the Calcutta-Suez run, the Red Sea now made safe by the immaculate surveys led by Moresby and Elwon. The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company or P&O is a shipping line which started in 1840 after the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company won the British Admiralty contract to carry the mail overseas in 1837. ... Southampton is a city, unitary authority and major port situated on the south coast of England. ... This article is on Calcutta/Kolkata, the city. ...

Moresby's charts were so good that they were favoured by Maldivian pilots navigating through the treacherous waters of their atolls until the 1990s.

References

• Searight, Sarah, The Charting of the Red Sea. History Today, 2003
• H.C.P. Bell, The Maldive Islands, An account of the physical features, History, Inhabitants, Productions and Trade. Colombo
• The Maldive Islands; Monograph on the History, Archaeology and Epigraphy. Reprint Colombo 1940. Council for Linguistic and Historical Research. Male’ 1989
• Christopher, William 1836-38. Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, Vol. I. Bombay.
• Lieut. I.A. Young & W. Christopher, ‘Memoirs on the Inhabitants of the Maldive Islands.’