Isaac Weld

Isaac Weld JP FGSD MRIA (1774–1856) was an Anglo-Irish topographical writer, explorer, and artist.

On Washington, DC, he wrote "If the affairs of the United States go on as rapidly as they have done, it will become the grand emporium of the West, and rival in magnitude and splendour the cities of the whole world."

In May 1815 he sailed from Dún Laoghaire to London in the 14 horsepower (10 kW) steamboat Thames, the first such vessel to make the passage.

He compiled the Statistical Survey of the County of Roscommon (1838) for the Royal Dublin Society, of which he was Honorary Secretary and Vice-President.

He died at his home, Ravenswell, near Bray, County Wicklow, 4 August 1856, and is buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin.

His ancestor, Thomas Weld, was a Puritan minister from Suffolk, England who was one of three brothers who emigrated to Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1632.

He left Massachusetts for Kinsale and then Blarney Castle, County Cork, Ireland (1655) to be a Puritan Chaplain with Oliver Cromwell.