The Meteorological Data of William Hutchinson and a Liverpool Air Pressure Time Series Spanning 1768-1999

This paper discusses some of the meteorological measurements made at Liverpool by Captain William Hutchinson in the second half of the 18th century. It gives an overview of the various data sets, most of which are now in computer-accessible form, and provides assessments of their quality, the aim being to gain an overall impression of how good an observer Hutchinson was. His air pressure data have been studied in detail, through comparisons to information from other UK stations, and via investigation of the sea level response to air pressure change as observed in his own tidal measurements. A first attempt has been made to construct a Liverpool air pressure time series spanning 1768-1999, by means of combination of Hutchinson’s data with later information from the Liverpool docks and Bidston Observatory.