Hunt, Henry Ambrose (1866 - 1946)

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).

Details

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

Related entries

Published resources

Book Sections

• Walsh, G. P., 'Hunt, Henry Ambrose (1866-1946), meteorologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), p. 405. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A090401b.htm. Details

Journal Articles

• Hunt, Henry Ambrose, 'Wind Data Recorder (Exhibit)', Proceedings of the Victorian Institute of Engineers vol. X (1910), 149-153. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/24454. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5717294. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/77825073. Details
• 'Hunt, Henry Ambrose (1866-1946)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1466531. Details

Resource Sections

• 'Hunt, Henry Ambrose', in Physics in Australia to 1945, R.W. Home, with the assistance of Paula J. Needham, Australian Science Archives Project, June 1995, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/physics/P002230p.htm. Details

See also

• Federation and Meteorology, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/fam/index_h.html. Details