Robert Moresby

Captain Robert Moresby (15 June 1794 – 15 June 1854) was a British naval officer, hydrographer and surveyor who served in the Bombay Marine and Indian Navy.

As a Lieutenant under Commander Thomas Elwon, Moresby was part of a two-ship exercise engaged (from 1829 to 1832) in charting the dangerous waters of the Red Sea. Later, he also charted some coralline archipelagoes of the Indian Ocean, such as the Maldives, Laccadives and Chagos in the 1820s and '30s. This work ensured that the route from Europe to the East Indies became viable for the new steam vessels.

Robert Moresby was a son of Mr Fairfax Moresby of Lichfield, Staffs, late of India, where Fairfax Moresby had practised as a lawyer. Fairfax Moresby and his wife Mary Rotton had 6 boys and 3 girls, the eldest of whom was Sir Fairfax Moresby, Admiral of the British Fleet, and Commander in Chief, Channel Squadron and Pacific Station. Robert Moresby's relation to the family is uncertain and it is possible he was the son of another liaison of his father, which might explain his employment in the Bombay Marine, which suffered greatly from being at the bottom of the East India Company's pecking order.

The East India route and the new era of trade and communication

In the nineteenth century, the sea route between the Mediterranean Sea and India would come to play a key role in a new era of communication. Already before the opening of the Suez Canal, industrial Britain had a rapidly expanding economy and needed improved communication with British India, with its raw materials and imperial requirements. Crucial in the development of the Red Sea route between the two countries was the harnessing of steam power, most notably in the form of the marine steam engine.