Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/394

 some time senior officer at the Mauritius, and on the death of Commodore Nourse, the commander-in-chief, in December 1824, he moved into the Andromache and hoisted a broad pennant, which he continued to fly till relieved by Commodore Christian. From December 1825 to the summer of 1827 he was captain of the Prince Regent, carrying the flag of his father as commander-in-chief at Chatham. He had no further service at sea, though advanced in due course to be rear-admiral on 17 Aug. 1851, and vice-admiral on 10 Sept. 1857. During his later years he was a director and afterwards chairman of the London and North-Western Railway. He had thus also the direction of the steam-packets from Holyhead to Dublin, and was led to consider the question of steam navigation. He was chairman of a committee on steamship performance appointed by the British Association, to which he presented reports in 1859 and 1860. He was also the author of an essay 'On the Principles of Naval Tactics,' privately printed in 1843, and published, with additions, in 1846. He died suddenly in Montagu Place, Russell Square, London, on 26 May 1861. He married in 1822 Mary, daughter qf Jacob Maude of Silaby Hall, Durham, and by her had a large family.

His first cousin, (1817-1860), born in 1817, was a lieutenant of the Cornwallis in the first China war, was captain of the Firebrand in the Black Sea, and served with the naval brigade in the Crimea during the Russian war; was a C.B., an officer of the Legion of Honour, and had the Medjidie third class. In 1857 he was appointed to the Diadem frigate, in which, when just recovering from a severe attack of small-pox, he was sent to the West Indies and to Vera Cruz. There he contracted a low fever, which, on his return to England in October 1859, compelled him to resign his command. He died on 4 Feb. 1860. Moorsom was the inventor of the shell with the percussion fuze which bore his name. This shell, though long since superseded by the advance of rifled ordnance, was the first in which the difficulties inherent in the problem were satisfactorily overcome. He also invented the 'director,' an instrument for directing the concentration of a ship's broadside. In an improved form, and in combination with the system of electric firing, it is still used in our navy, and is believed to be the origin of the celebrated Watkin position-finder. Moorsom was the author of 'Suggestions for the Organisation and Manoeuvres of Steam Fleets, 1854, 4to, and of 'Remarks on the Construction of Ships of War and the Composition of War Fleets,' Portsea, 1857, 8vo.

 MOORSOM, WILLIAM SCARTH (1804–1863), captain, civil engineer, son of Admiral Sir Robert Moorsom, K.C.B. (d. 1835). William was born at his father's residence, Upper Stakesby, near Whitby, Yorkshire, in 1804. Constantine Richard Moorsom. [q. v.] was his brother. He was educated at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, where he took a very high position in fortification and military surveying, and was presented by his brother cadets with a sword in token of their general esteem. On 22 March 1821 he was appointed ensign in the 79th highlanders in Ireland. In Dublin he employed his leisure in making a trigonometrical survey of the city, which was used by the quartermaster-general's department until the introduction of the ordnance-map, and gained him a lieutenancy in the 7th royal fusiliers on 12 Feb. 1825. He was adjutant of the 'reserve companies,' or depot of that regiment, until promoted to an unattached company on 26 Jan. 1826. He passed through half-pay of the 69th regiment to the 52nd light infantry in Nova Scotia.

In Nova Scotia he was an active explorer, and published a small volume of letters on. the colony and its prospects. His survey of Halifax and its environs was for a long time, probably is still, the best extant. Sir Peregrine Maitland [q. v.] appointed him deputy quartermaster-general, and he collected valuable statistics of the military resources of Nova Scotia and ^New Brunswick. He sold out of the army on 2 March 1832, married, and resided chiefly with his father, until the death of the latter.

During this period he assisted in the establishment of the London and Birmingham Railway Company, of which his elder brother, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Constantine Richard Moorsom [q. v.], was director. His survey of a very difficult section of country, crossing the valley of the Ouse, attracted the notice of Robert Stephenson. In 1835-6 Moorsom visited and studied every railway and canal working or in progress of construction in England. He was employed by Messrs. Sturge of Birmingham to execute the surveys for a proposed line of railway from Birmingham to Gloucester. Moorsom proposed to approach the high table-lands of Staffordshire from the Severn valley by an incline of 1 in 37. Stephenson and Brunei advocated more circuitous routes to avoid the incline, but Moorsom's plan was preferred by the parliamentary committee. He completed

