of the dockyard at Woolwich, and in the following March to the command of the “Arrogant,” one of the early screw frigates which had been fitted out under his supervision, and with which it was desired to carry out a series of experiments and trials. When these were finished he applied to be superseded, on account at once of his health and of his private affairs. In February 1850 he was accordingly placed on half-pay; nor did he ever serve again, although advanced in due course by seniority to the ranks of rear- and vice-admiral on the retired list (1857, 1863). In 1851 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1854, after serving for a few months as private secretary to his uncle, Lord Hardinge, then commander-in-chief of the army, he was appointed to the meteorological department of the Board of Trade, with, in the first instance, the peculiar title of “Meteorological Statist.”
From the date of his joining the “Beagle” in 1828 he had paid very great attention to the different phenomena foreboding or accompanying change of weather, and his narratives of the voyages of the “Adventure” and “Beagle” are full of interesting and valuable details concerning these. Accordingly, when in 1854 Lord Wrottesley, the president of the Royal Society, was asked by the Board of Trade to recommend a chief for its newly forming meteorological department, he, almost without hesitation, nominated Fitzroy, whose name and career became from that time identified with the progress of practical meteorology. His Weather Book, published in 1863, embodies in broad outline his views, far in advance of those then generally held; and in spite of the rapid march of modern science, it is still worthy of careful attention and exact study. His storm warnings, in their origin, indeed, liable to a charge of empiricism, were gradually developed on a more scientific basis, and gave a high percentage of correct results. They were continued for eighteen months after his death by the assistants he had trained, and though stopped when the department was transferred to the management of a committee of the Royal Society, they were resumed a few months afterwards; and under the successive direction of Dr R. H. Scott and Dr W. N. Shaw, have been developed into what we now know them. But though it is perhaps by these storm warnings that Fitzroy’s name has been most generally known, seafaring men owe him a deeper debt of gratitude, not only for his labours in reducing to a more practical form the somewhat complicated wind charts of Captain Maury, but also for his great exertions in connexion with the life-boat association. Into this work, in its many ramifications, he threw himself with the energy of an excitable temperament, already strained by his long and anxious service in the Straits of Magellan. His last years were fully and to an excessive degree occupied by it; his health, both of body and mind, threatened to give way; but he refused to take the rest that was prescribed. In a fit of mental aberration he put an end to his existence on the 30th of April 1865.
Besides his works already named mention may be made of Remarks on New Zealand (1846); Sailing Directions for South America (1848); his official reports to the Board of Trade (1857–1865); and occasional papers in the journal of the Royal Geographical Society and of the Royal United Service Institution. (J. K. L.)
FITZROY, a city of Bourke county, Victoria, Australia,
2 m. by rail N.E. of and suburban to Melbourne. Pop. (1901)
31,610. It is a prosperous manufacturing town, well served with
tramways and containing many fine residences.
FITZ STEPHEN, ROBERT (fl. 1150), son of Nesta, a Welsh
princess and former mistress of Henry I., by Stephen, constable
of Cardigan, whom Robert succeeded in that office, took service
with Dermot of Leinster when that king visited England (1167).
In 1169 Robert led the vanguard of Dermot’s Anglo-Welsh
auxiliaries to Ireland, and captured Wexford, which he was then
allowed to hold jointly with Maurice Fitz Gerald. Taken
prisoner by the Irish in 1171, he was by them surrendered to
Henry II., who appointed him lieutenant of the justiciar of
Ireland, Hugh de Lacy. Robert rendered good service in the
troubles of 1173, and was rewarded by receiving, jointly with
Miles Cogan, a grant of Cork (1177). He had difficulty in maintaining
his position and was nearly overwhelmed by a rising of
Desmond in 1182. The date of his death is uncertain.
FITZ STEPHEN, WILLIAM (d. c. 1190), biographer of Thomas Becket and royal justice, was a Londoner by origin. He entered Becket’s service at some date between 1154 and 1162. The chancellor employed Fitz Stephen in legal work, made him sub-deacon of his chapel and treated him as a confidant. Fitz Stephen appeared with Becket at the council of Northampton (1164) when the disgrace of the archbishop was published to the world; but he did not follow Becket into exile. He joined Becket’s household again in 1170, and was a spectator of the tragedy in Canterbury cathedral. To his pen we owe the most valuable among the extant biographies of his patron. Though he writes as a partisan he gives a precise account of the differences between Becket and the king. This biography contains a description of London which is our chief authority for the social life of the city in the 12th century. Despite his connexion with Becket, William subsequently obtained substantial preferment from the king. He was sheriff of Gloucestershire from 1171 to 1190, and a royal justice in the years 1176–1180 and 1189–1190.
See his “Vita S. Thomae” in J. C. Robertson’s Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, vol. iii. (Rolls series, 1877). Sir T. D. Hardy, in his Catalogue of Materials, ii. 330 (Rolls series, 1865), discusses the manuscripts of this biography and its value. W. H. Hutton, St Thomas of Canterbury, pp. 272-274 (1889), gives an account of the author. (H. W. C. D.)
FITZ THEDMAR, ARNOLD (d. 1274), London chronicler and
merchant, was born in London on the 9th of August 1201. Both
his parents were of German extraction. The family of his mother
migrated to England from Cologne in the reign of Henry II.;
his father, Thedmar by name, was a citizen of Bremen who had
been attracted to London by the privileges which the Plantagenets
conferred upon the Teutonic Hanse. Arnold succeeded in
time to his father’s wealth and position. He held an honourable
position among the Hanse traders, and became their “alderman.”
He was also, as he tells us himself, alderman of a London ward
and an active partisan in municipal politics. In the Barons’
War he took the royal side against the populace and the mayor
Thomas Fitz Thomas. The popular party planned, in 1265, to
try him for his life before the folk-moot, but he was saved by the
news of the battle of Evesham which arrived on the very day
appointed for the trial. Even after the king’s triumph Arnold
suffered from the malice of his enemies, who contrived that
he should be unfairly assessed for the tallages imposed upon
the city. He appealed for help to Henry III., and again to
Edward I., with the result that his liability was diminished.
In 1270 he was one of the four citizens to whose keeping the
muniments of the city were entrusted. To this circumstance
we probably owe the compilation of his chronicle. Chronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum, which begins at the year 1188 and is
continued to 1274. From 1239 onwards this work is a mine of
curious information. Though municipal in its outlook, it is
valuable for the general history of the kingdom, owing to the
important part which London played in the agitation against
the misrule of Henry III. We have the king’s word for the fact
that Arnold was a consistent royalist; but this is apparent from
the whole tenor of the chronicle. Arnold was by no means
blind to the faults of Henry’s government, but preferred an
autocracy to the mob-rule which Simon de Montfort countenanced
in London. Arnold died in 1274; the last fact recorded of him
is that, in this year, he joined in a successful appeal to the king
against the illegal grants which had been made by the mayor,
Walter Hervey.
The Chronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum, with the other contents of Arnold’s common-place book, were edited for the Camden Society by T. Stapleton (1846), under the title Liber de Antiquis Legibus. Our knowledge of Arnold’s life comes from the Chronica and his own biographical notes. Extracts, with valuable notes, are edited in G. H. Pertz’s Mon. Germaniae historica, Scriptores, vol. xxviii. See also J. M. Lappenberg’s Urkundliche Geschichte des Hansischen Stahlhofes zu London (Hamburg, 1851). (H. W. C. D.)
FITZWALTER, ROBERT (d. 1235), leader of the baronial
opposition against King John of England, belonged to the
