Boyle Somerville
Boyle Somerville | |
|---|---|
Lieutenant-Commander Boyle Somerville | |
| Born | 7 September 1863 Castletownshend, County Cork, Ireland |
| Died | 24 March 1936 (aged 72) Castletownshend, County Cork, Ireland |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch | Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1877–1919 |
| Rank | Vice Admiral |
| Commands | HMS Devonshire HMS King Alfred HMS Amphitrite HMS Argonaut HMS Victorian |
| Battles / wars | Anglo-Egyptian War First World War |
| Awards | Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George |
| Spouse(s) |
Helen Mabel Allen (m. 1896) |
| Relations | Edith Somerville (sister) |
Vice-Admiral Henry Boyle Townshend Somerville CMG (7 September 1863 – 24 March 1936) was an Irish naval officer who served in the Royal Navy as a hydrographic surveyor. His survey work in the Pacific led to an interest in ethnography, and he put together a significant collection of artefacts. He carried out oceanographic and magnetic observations in the Indian Ocean, and developed a sounding apparatus for determining ocean depths from a ship under way. He carried out archaeological work as well as surveying in Britain and Ireland. He was an author of scholarly works as well as of popular accounts of his surveying activities and the comprehensive Ocean Passages of the World. Somerville was killed by the Irish Republican Army in 1936.