John Eliot (meteorologist)

Sir John Eliot KCIE FRS (25 May 1839 – 18 March 1908) was a mathematician and meteorologist who served as the second meteorological reporter to the Indian government, succeeding Henry Francis Blanford.

Soon elected to a fellowship, he accepted, owing to weak health and with a view to avoiding the climate of England, the professorship of mathematics at the Engineering College at Roorkee in the North-West Provinces, under the Indian government.

In 1886, he succeeded Henry Francis Blanford as meteorological reporter to the government of India and was appointed in addition director-general of Indian observatories in 1899.

[1] Eliot however did not use numerical approaches to examine these relations and believed for instance that a high pressure over Mauritius contributed to the intensity of the monsoons.

"The number of observatories working under or in connection with the department was increased from 135 to 240 (including two at an elevation of over 11,000 ft.) and the co-operation of the larger native states was secured.

Methods of giving warnings of storms at sea were developed and telegraphic intimations of impending floods to engineers on large works under construction or in charge of railway canals and bridges saved the state from heavy losses.

He was also secretary of the solar commission, suggested by Sir Norman Lockyer to the International Meteorological Committee which met at Southport in 1903.

He died suddenly of apoplexy on 18 March 1908 at Bon Porto, the estate which he had acquired for his wife's health at Var in the south of France.