What was it about Daniel Ross (1780–1849) that he, a freed slave and bastard, reached the acceptance and respect of the highest levels of British Society?
If Daniel was overcome his lowly birth as bastard, freed slave and of colour, he was lucky to be born to the right parents. His mother Elizabeth Foord was the third generation of slave women bearing children to their white British owner and classed quadroon. Such women were much prized for the lightness of their skin. Daniel inherited her British look and whiteness. His father Hercules Ross must have owned Elizabeth, because only slave owners could pay the manumission fee to free a slave. Hercules freed Elizabeth in 1776, months before their first-born twins Jane and Margaret were born. Children of a freed slave, were automatically free – a crucial distinction in the Caribbean. Hercules also made a successful application to the Jamaican Assembly for Elizabeth to have the same privileged rights as Jamaicans with two parents born in the British Isles, a benefit granted to very small number of people of colour. Daniel and his four siblings benefitted from her privileged status and were part of the island’s elite, both white and coloured.
Privileged status though was not enough. Elite Jamaican schools were barred to them and they would always be disadvantaged unless they were educated. Luckily, their father. Hercules Ross, was a wealthy plantation owner who took care of his illegitimate children. Hercules was also Scottish. More than anyone else in the British islands, the Scots had struggled to achieve social legitimacy from their marginalised position, so maybe he empathised with their disadvantaged position. He understood that a British education could erase many of their disadvantages and confer a British identity with shared characteristics and the legitimacy they were barred from in Jamaica. Very few plantation owners acknowledged their mixed-race children, let alone educated them in Britain, and of this group, a disproportionate number were Scots with their tradition of education. Scottish elite schools were advanced compared to other countries and taught literacy, numeracy, Latin and religious instruction. Such an education would give Daniel Ross and his brothers the manners of a gentleman and his sisters a chance of marriage. In short, it was fundamental to their social advancement.
In 1782, Hercules sold many of his plantations and went back to Scotland, taking two year old Daniel and his four siblings. He married a Scottish beauty in 1842, but still educated his first family until each reached 14-years-old. Hercules then cast them off saying “it is enough they were born free and educated”.
Daniel was fortunate to have a protector. His father had become close friend Horatio Nelson when he was a young midshipman recovering from fever at Hercules’ Bushey Park Plantation , and when Daniel reached 14-years-old, Nelson recommended him to the East India Company’s private navy, the Bombay Marine in 1795. He could be less distinct and prosper better, in the East Indies than in the Caribbean. Daniel’s two brothers also went to the East Indies to seek their fortunes, but Nelson only helped Daniel. Perhaps he saw young Daniel’s ability.
The timing was crucial. The Age of Enlightenment, a period of optimism, rationalism and empiricism, still allowed upward mobility for mixed-race people when Daniel was born in 1780. After the 1791 Saint Dominique slave revolt, increasingly restrictive legislation discriminated against people of colour. Britons worried that the rebellious contagion would spread to their Anglophone East Indian colonies and after the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act, others worried about racial dilution and sharing their inheritance with mixed-race relatives. Bombay Marine’s hiring policy responded to this, and after 1800 no longer appointed officers born in the West Indies with only one parent born in the British Isles. Daniel’s eldest brother Hercules applied to Bombay Marine for a commission in 1800 and fell foul of this rule. He was taken on as third Mate and not an officer. Daniel Ross slipped in four years earlier.
Daniel was taken on as Volunteer Midshipman at the East India Company London Headquarters, with orders to report to the East India Company headquarters in Bombay in 1795, sailing on the Berrington. His baggage having failed to arrive by the time the ship sailed, the Captain, George Robertson, told him to return to London and explain matters to the East India Company, who told him to go out on the next year’s ship. This would have meant a loss of a year’s seniority, quite apart from having to support himself. Using his initiative, Daniel signed himself on as midshipman on a schooner heading for India and worked his passage, arriving weeks before the Berrington, as the ship was diverted and delayed. Taking the initiative, grasping opportunities as they came and turning them to his advantage, were defining characteristic of the man.
All Daniel’s adult life he took on significant tasks or actions with little hesitation and he excelled as a fighting man. By 1801 he was serving as First Lieutenant and distinguished himself at the Battle of Ternate. Mentioned in dispatches for bravery and sent back to Britain to report the Battle success to the East India Company Board, he was transferred to the more prestigious Royal Navy and served in HMS Star under Commodore Hayes. He failed to be taken on and was transferred back to Bombay Marine Panther in 1802. This would have been very disappointing to Daniel at the time, but it was very lucky. Had he gone into The Royal Navy he would have remained a fighting man, he would not have met three pirate ships in 1805, and he would not been given command of the survey ship Antelope in 1806.
Daniel Ross fell into surveying by accident. The command of Antelope was given for his success against those three pirate boats, but the Select Committee in the Port of Canton, China, who had asked for Antelope to be sent, changed his instructions. His first priority was no longer the ‘protection or need for competence in warfare’ as directed by Bombay Marine. Now his task was ‘a complete and regular survey of the China Seas, including those parts which have never been visited by Europeans, as well as such coasts and islands therein’. The ships, known as East Indiamen, were the largest merchant sailing ships ever built, and the tea and opium trade was valuable.
Antelope was the first Bombay Marine dedicated survey ship, and Daniel and his officers were the first salaried hydrographers, in the newly formed permanent and professional surveying service in British-ruled Domains until the winding up of the East India Company in 1863. Before 1806, the Bombay Marine hydrography was a haphazard, semi- private charting service headed by James Horsburgh using his own privateers and a range
of sources. Other freelance surveyors produced coastal charts too, often giving contradictory data. The results were notoriously unreliable and Captains had to reconcile rival charts. The technical change by Bombay Marine was standardisation of their charts. They also made them available to any seaman for a modest fee.
This was not the only innovation. Captain Ross was a consumer. He knew what was required; he knew the consequences of inaccurate and conflicting charts. Indeed, while surveying the Pearl River delta in 1807, he rescued the Asia that was aground, for which he was given a Silver Cup by Baring Bros, the Philadelphia Underwriter. (The cup is now at The Royal Society.)
Daniel threw himself into the task. His mindset always that dedication and hard work achieved success, be it as a fighting man or now a surveyor. Daniel embraced the technical advances in hydrography that allowed for more accurate coastal charts. On his first survey, he equipped himself with four chronometers at a time when the average vessel had a single chronometer only if its captain owned one. His sextant was a Troughton and he had a mercury artificial horizon. Later he used the latest in high-tech, a Massey’s patent towed log, the first mechanical log ever made. His charts were renowned for accuracy and precision, were safer, and Captains could navigate problematic harbours, the sand bars at river deltas, and knew where the dangerous reefs and atolls were. It was the most systematic and scientific survey from Hainan to Breaker Point on the Pearl River Delta and the Paracels.
During his surveying career, he produced 46 charts, known for their scientific accuracy, which form the basis of our charts today. Though not formally trained as a surveyor, al naval officers were trained to use a sextant and apply trigonometry. His first lieutenant Maughan said, ‘Concerning Captain Daniel Ross’s labours in the China Seas from 1806-1820, believe me the British Merchants Trading to China and the Captains and ships owe much to his scientific exertions…no fatigue night or day damped his ardour to benefit his country – I was with him most of the time & witness to his exertions…He carried out all his surveys on a trigonometrical basis; all his angles were checked with sextant and his triangulation frequently checked by astronomical observations’ (as quoted in Agnes Butterfield, Captain Daniel Ross (1982), p5).
Daniel returned to England in 1821. He appeared before a Parliamentary Select Committee
considering trade with China and was elected Fellow of The Royal Society in 1822 in recognition of his South China Seas 1806 to 1820 surveys. A year later, he was appointed Marine Surveyor General of India. His genteel manner allowed Captain Jervis of the Bengal Engineers publicly counted him a friend, ‘The maritime surveys … are honourable to the spirit of the great public body …. [especially] a series of charts of the entire coast of China, by my friend Captain Daniel Ross.’ (British Association for the Advancement of Science, August 26, 1838). He had been accepted by British Society.
Daniel Ross overcame his illegitimate, mixed heritage and freed slave status, because he was born when there was fluidity of society for those very few who were fortunate to have a wealthy caring father who prized education. It also helped that he looked white, thanks to his mother. His British schooling conferred Britishness and the manners of a gentleman, which allowed him acceptance in British Society. His brother David and Hercules had this same advantage, but did not succeed like Daniel. They stayed fighting men, as would Daniel If chance had not made him a surveyor. ‘Captain Ross established for himself a European reputation of a high order, as one of the most practical and correct of Eastern Hydrographers; and the fortunes of many merchants, and the lives of many mariners, have been saved by the results of his patient and scientific labors.” Minutes of the Bombay Geographical Society appointing Daniel Ross as Honorary President, 1849.
By hard work, the ability to grasp opportunities to his advantage, be dedicated to whatever task given, Daniel Ross gained acceptance into British Society. ‘He was eminently blessed with talent, important everywhere for the promotion of scientific research. He could perform his work with any implement, and transform and employ his instruments so as to attain ends by their use for which to others they would seem least adapted. Using intuitive, mathematical, observational and technical navigational skills of a ships officer on which lives depended at a time when charts were emerging from infancy.’ (Straits Times Obituary 1849).