"AS divers persons have of late years published Histories of the Weather, perhaps one from a considerable city in this kingdom, containing a larger series of observations in one place than often falls to the lot of an individual to make, may merit a place among the rest." Thus begins the Introduction to Dr John Rutty's The Weather and Seasons in Dublin for Forty Years, published in 1770. It contains not only Rutty's own carefully compiled daily weather observations for the city, but also data from other weather diaries to which he had access at the time, and is a comprehensive and detailed pen picture of Irish weather from 1716 to 1766.
Rutty was born in Wiltshire in 1697. He moved to Dublin in 1724 after qualifying as a medical doctor, and as many educated people did in those days, he dabbled in nearly all the arts and sciences. His most famous legacy is probably a commentary on his personal religious faith published after his death under the title Spiritual Diaries and Soliloquies: it recounts his spiritual "conflicts, backslidings and progresses" over a period of 20 years, and caused Dr Samuel Johnson, rather unkindly, to "laugh heartily at this good Quaker's self condemning minuteness."
The Weather and Seasons in Dublin for Forty Years shows Rutty to have been much more than just a simple observer of the elements. He also interpreted the data as best he could, much of his analysis directed at disproving astrology or astronomy as predictors of the weather. He claimed, for example, that his long series of observations demolished "the vulgar error of great rains at the equinoxes, showing that storms are far more frequent at other times of the year". Indeed, any attempt to use astronomical occurrences to forecast the weather should, he said, "be ridiculed as equally practicable and useful as fixing a sundial on a weather cock".
Rutty justifies his speculative approach by saying that his book "may possibly find more readers if one could show the real usefulness of the undertaking, for which purpose the following observations are premised. It must be acknowledged, however, that there are truly many anomalies in their appearances, of which I am far from promising to give a satisfactory solution, and some of which I shall here merely mention as problems to exercise men of superior genius and leisure."
Dr John Rutty, physician, historian, meteorologist and theologian, died 226 years ago on April 26th, 1775: he was buried, not far from where he lived, in the Friend's burial on St Stephen's Green where the Royal College of Surgeons stands today.