From boyhood , he made observations on the weather with instruments of his own construction , and at the age of seventeen became a member of the Royal Meteorological Society . From 1863 , he sat on the council , acted as secretary 1873-9 and 1882-99 , and was elected president in 1880 and again in 1900 . In 1857 , he undertook , and continued to discharge until his death , the duties of meteorological reporter to the registrar-general , and was appointed by Robert FitzRoy in 1860 to a post in the meteorological department of the board of trade , which he held for three years . He resigned it owing to the growing exigencies of his rainfall observations . The first of a series of thirty-nine annual volumes containing statistics on the subject was published by him in 1860 ; it included records from 168 stations in England and Wales . In 1898 , the number of stations had grown to 3,404 , of which 436 were in Scotland and 186 in Ireland , and they were manned by an army of over three thousand volunteer observers . This unique organisation was kept by Symons under close personal supervision , and the upshot was the accumulation of a mass of data of standard value , unmatched in any other country . The sanitary importance of water-supply was a determining motive for its collection . Symons began , in 1863 , the issue of a monthly rain-circular , which developed in 1866 into the '' Monthly Meteorological Magazine , '' still in course of publication . He was a prominent member of various committees appointed by the British Association , and as secretary to the conference on lightning rods in 1878 shared largely in the four years ' task of compiling its report . Elected in 1878 a fellow of the Royal Society , he acted as chairman of the committee on the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 , and edited the voluminous report published in 1888 . He sat on the council of the Social Science Association in 1878 , and on the jury of the Health Exhibition in 1884 ; was registrar to the Sanitary Institute from 1880 to 1895 , and drew up a report on the 1884 Colchester earthquake for the Mansion House committee . In 1876 , he received the Telford premium of the Institution of Civil Engineers for a paper on '' Floods and Water Economy , '' and in 1897 the Albert medal of the Society of Arts for the ' services rendered to the United Kingdom ' by his rainfall observations . He was a member of the Scottish and Australasian Meteorological Societies , of the Royal Botanic Society , and of many foreign learned associations . Twice elected to the council of the Societe Météorologique de France , he frequently attended its meetings at Paris , and was made , in 1891 , a chevalier of the legion of honour . Struck with paralysis on 14 February , he died on 10 March 1900 , and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery
1884 Colchester earthquake
1884 Colchester earthquake
George James Symons