Person

Hunt, Henry Ambrose (1866 - 1946)

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    Henry Ambrose Hunt, courtesy of Bureau of Meteorology.
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Born
7 February 1866
London, Middlesex, England
Died
7 February 1946
Elwood, Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Meteorologist and Science administrator

Summary

Henry Hunt was the first Meteorologist and first head of the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau, from 1906 to 1931. Hunt invented a new form of pressure anemometer in 1908, for measuring wind strength. He co-authored, along with E.T. Quayle and T. Griffith Taylor, the first text-book on Australian meteorology, Climate and Weather of Australia (Sydney, 1913).

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Hunt began his meteorological career as an assistant to H. C. Russell in Sydney. He had already won an international prize for his work on the Southerly Buster when appointed as Australia's first Commonwealth Meteorologist in 1906. He was immediately despatched on a world trip to assess the latest developments in meteorology. Although he provided outstanding scientific leadership to the early Bureau, he fought a long and difficult battle through the period of the First World War and the Great Depression to obtain the resources needed to build the networks and scientific basis for Australia's meteorological services. A Hundred Years of Science and Service, Bureau of Meteorology, 2001.

Chronology

1884
Life event - Emigrated to Sydney, Austalia
1884 - 1886
Career position - Clerk, Sydney Observatory
1886 - 1903
Career position - Meteorological assistant, Sydney Observatory
1894
Award - Ralph Abercromby prize for An Essay on Southerly Bursters (Sydney, 1894)
1904 - 1906
Career position - Acting meteorologist, Sydney Observatory
1906 - 1931
Career position - First appointed Meteorologist, Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau, in Melbourne
1908
Career event - Invented a new form of pressure anemometer
1913
Career event - Book published Climate and Weather of Australia co-authored with T.G. Taylor and E.T. Quayle
1919
Career position - Foundation Councillor (Meteorology), Australian National Research Council

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Digital resources

Title
Henry Ambrose Hunt
Type
Image
Publisher
Bureau of Meteorology

Details

Rosanne Walker; Ken McInnes

Created: 29 June 1995, Last modified: 17 April 2024

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