Henry Piddington

Little is known of his early sailing life but he rose to command a ship and by 1824 he was living in Bengal and settled in Calcutta (city in India) around 1831 and took an interest in scientific pursuits.

In 1833 he wrote Examination and analysis of some specimens of iron ore from Burdwan and On the fertilising principles of the inundations of the Hugli in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

[1] In 1832, he compiled a list of the plants of economic importance and from 1835 he wrote on a variety of topics including descriptions of fish, reviews of fossil finds in South America and on geology.

[1] The result of Piddington's studies based on the logs of several ships, notably the Brig Charles Heddle which was trapped in a storm off Mauritius, was his observation of the spiral wind tracks, and he wrote a series of papers (24 memoirs in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal) on the topic.

He produced a second edition in 1848, and introduced the word "cyclone" derived from Greek κύκλος (kyklos, meaning "circle" or "ring"), based on the helical nature of the winds.

[1] Piddington held other positions as a secretary to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society; Her Majesty's Coroner of Calcutta (from 1844); and President of Marine Courts of Enquiry.