Henry Charles Otter

Henry Charles Otter (1807 – 26 March 1876) was a Royal Navy officer and hydrographic surveyor, noted for his work in charting Scotland in the mid-19th century.

[3]: 6 The survey then moved on to Scotland, where Slater died, in February 1842, falling from Holborn Head, a headland near Scrabster, very likely by suicide.

[5] Otter then took charge of the survey of Scotland, which occupied him for most of the next twenty years, and resulted in the publication of over 40 Admiralty charts.

The surveys of the channels between the various islands of Åland were crucial in enabling the transport of the French and British troops to their landing places.

On 9 June, while surveying near the fortress of Kronstadt, the Firefly and HMS Merlin were struck by mines ("infernal machines").

[14] In early August, Firefly bombarded Brandon, the port and shipbuilding centre near Vasa, destroying the magazines and also capturing several vessels and stores.

On one occasion, he rescued the factor and his crew, whose boat had been wrecked in Village Bay, and who otherwise would have had to stay on the Island for the winter.

When Ann Gillies, A St Kilda woman, was expecting a child in 1860, Henry and Jemima encouraged her in a diet of cocoa, meat and biscuit.

Otter was in St Kilda at the time, and witnessed its devastating effects on boats, on houses in the village, and on crops, though Porcupine survived.