Sir Edward Sabine (/ˈseɪbɪn/; 14 October 1788 – 26 June 1883) was an Irish Physicist,[1] Geodesist[2]astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, Polar explorer, soldier, and the 30th president of the Royal Society.

[3][4] Other research focused on the birds of Greenland, ocean temperatures, the Gulf Stream, barometric measurement of heights, arc of the meridian, glacial transport of rocks, the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands and various points of meteorology.

[1] His Father, Joseph Sabine, was a member of a prominent Anglo-Irish family who was visiting his Irish relatives at the time of his son's birth.

In 1803, at age 15, he obtained a commission in the Royal Artillery as a second lieutenant, becoming a captain ten years later and eventually attaining the rank of general in 1870.

Despite a dispute with Ross over credit, Sabine contributed a report on biological findings, including a new bird species, Larus sabini.

In 1821, he also embarked on a scientific voyage to the South Atlantic and Caribbean, later conducting studies in Greenland, where Sabine Island was named in his honor.

Sabine received support for his magnetic research from Sir John Barrow, secretary of the Admiralty, and the Royal Society.

In 1839, Sabine played a key role in securing support for an Antarctic expedition led by James Clark Ross aboard HMS Erebus, with Capt.

[1] Promoted to General in 1870, Sabine received numerous prestigious awards, including a DCL from Oxford, an LLD from Cambridge, and the KCB (Knight Commander of the Bath), along with several foreign honors.

As the expedition's appointed astronomer, Sabine was told to assist Ross "in making such observations as may tend to the improvement of geography and navigation and the advancement of science in general".

When Ross found his progress through Lancaster Sound blocked by sea ice, he turned around and headed back to Britain, much to the annoyance of the other members of the expedition.

Objecting to Ross's precipitate retreat, Sabine later recalled his "very visible mortification at having come away from a place which I considered as the most interesting in the world for magnetic observations and where my expectations had been raised to the highest pitch, without having had an opportunity of making them".

He also accused Ross of stealing magnetic measurements without giving him due credit and of refusing to allow him enough time on the expedition to take accurate readings.

Although he viewed his work as confirming and extending the discoveries of earlier "magnetic collectors", he stressed the need for the multiplication and repetition of observations.

He generally avoided theoretical discussion in his writings, believing that a true understanding of terrestrial magnetism would only be arrived at after exhaustive observations had been made on a global scale.

They were also to attempt to establish the location of the Earth's North Magnetic Pole, then believed to lie somewhere along the western shore of Baffin Bay.

In order to alleviate the tedium of the long Arctic winter, Sabine produced a weekly newspaper for the amusement of the crew.

Between 1821 and 1823 he travelled halfway around the world with his pendulums and carried out innumerable measurements at many different latitudes[5] including the intertropical coasts of Africa and the Americas.

Between 1827 and 1829, the Duke of Wellington granted Sabine general leave of absence from the army[5] on the understanding "that he was usefully employed in scientific pursuits".

Sabine's appointment was violently attacked by Charles Babbage in a pamphlet entitled Reflections on the Decline of Science in England and on Some of its Causes.

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was widely recognized that the Earth's magnetic field was continually changing over time in a complicated way that interfered with compass readings.

Suitable locations for the observatories were selected in both hemispheres and representations were made to dispatch an expedition to the Southern Ocean to carry out a magnetic survey of the Antarctic.

Observatories were to be established at Toronto, St. Helena, Cape Town, Tasmania and at stations to be determined by the East India Company, while other nations were invited to co-operate.

A second room was built to house a telescope, which was used to make accurate time readings based on the movement of the Sun and stars.

By 1846, photo-magnetographs had been developed by Francis Ronalds and Airy's associate Charles Brooke to continuously record the magnet's movements using the recent invention of photography.

The irregularity correlated very closely with fluctuations in the number of sunspots, whose cyclic nature had been discovered in 1844 by the German amateur astronomer Heinrich Schwabe.

[10] The following year, Sabine also made a similar correlation with the Moon, establishing that that celestial body too had an influence on the Earth's magnetic field.

Her four-volume translation of Alexander von Humboldt's monumental textbook of geophysics Kosmos, was published from 1849 to 1858.Her husband, Sabine wrote an introduction and added notes to this.

[15] Sabine authored numerous books, wrote hundreds of scientific papers (103 of which are cataloged in the Royal Society's collection), and contributed articles and literature reviews on topics related to terrestrial physics.

[1] Sir Edward Sabine died aged 94 in his home in Richmond, Surrey[1] on 26 June 1883, and was buried in the family vault at Tewin, Hertfordshire.