Joseph Billings
Joseph Billings (c. 1758, probably in Yarmouth, † 1806 in Moscow ) was an English navigator and hydrographer.
In the years 1776 to 1780 Billings accompanied James Cook on his third voyage of discovery in the Pacific Ocean. Based on this experience he was given the lead an expedition to the geographic and scientific exploration of the North Pacific by the Russian Empress Catherine II. Explored together with Gavriil Andreevich Sarytschew and charted Billings during a nine-year voyage 1785-1794 the Chukchi Peninsula, Bering Strait, the island chain of the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast. After his return, he moved at his own request to the Black Sea fleet and led 1797-1798 by hydrographic studies at the Russian coastline of the Black Sea. Subsequently, he published based on his collected data while a highly esteemed by his contemporaries under the title Atlas Maps and views of the Black Sea area BELONGING to the Russian empire (1799 ).
Life
Origin and years of service in the British Navy
Joseph Billings was probably born around 1758, the son of the fisherman Joseph Billing in Yarmouth. After a seven-year service in the British coal fleet and subsequent training as a watchmaker, he signed in April 1776 under Captain Charles Clerke as an assistant astronomer at the Discovery and took part in the third and final expedition of James Cook in the Pacific Ocean. After Clerke death off the coast of Kamchatka Billings moved in September 1779 to Resolution 1780 and returned back to England.
After further years of service on the Conquestador and the Crocodile Billings joined in July 1782 as a Master 's Mate (about a Chief Petty Officer equivalent) to the Resistance under Captain James King. During this time he frequently accompanied King on his visits to Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London.
In December 1782 Billings was imprisoned because of debts, but came in January 1783 through the intercession of Joseph Banks again. A scheduled command on an East Indiaman to Kamchatka did not materialize.
In Russian service
The Billings Sarytschew expedition to the North Pacific
In October 1783 Billings joined the rank of midshipman in the Imperial Russian Navy and was promoted to lieutenant in January 1784. When an expedition to the North Pacific was scheduled to command the Russian Empress Catherine II, Billings appeared on its experience under James Cook as the ideal candidate for this company and received the rank of Lieutenant in command of one of the two ships of the expedition.
Through a geographical exploration of the North Pacific region and the eastern borders of their empire hoped Catherine II to strengthen Russian influence in the region. As a first major expedition to the region since the expedition of Vitus Bering in the context of fifty years earlier started the Second Kamchatka the company came to be a high priority.
The main tasks of the expedition was the mapping of the coastline between the opening into the East Siberian Sea River Kolyma and Bering Strait, mapping and exploring the Chukchi Peninsula and the exact orientation of the Aleutian Islands and other islands between Kamchatka and America's coast. The instructions for billing wrote the German naturalist and geographer Peter Simon Pallas, who had already been involved in the Academy expeditions and worked at that time in the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
During the nine-year expedition Billings, the chief hydrographer of the Russian Navy Sarytschew and to them later bumped Robert Hall ( later Admiral and Governor of Arkhangelsk ) large parts of the North Pacific and created detailed descriptions of them traveled through areas and the indigenous population of Eastern Siberia exact measurements. The last expedition section between August 1791 and February 1792 made by Billings under the most difficult conditions travel on the Chukchi Peninsula, delivered for the first time detailed and reliable maps of the region. On his return to St. Petersburg in March 1794 Billings brought a wealth of material with the flora and fauna of Siberia and the Northeast Asian nations. In honor of the course of the expedition to the captain carried billing were named on the Chukchi Peninsula and three other places after him Cape Billings. In addition, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, one in 1782 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary jubilee of Catherine II donated Russian Merit Award.
Hydrographic studies in the Black Sea
In August 1795 Billing moved at his own request to the Black Sea Fleet. In the years 1797 and 1798 he conducted several extensive hydrographic studies belonging to the Russian Empire parts of the Black Sea. The data collected were included in the 1799 published Atlas Maps and views of the Black Sea area BELONGING to the Russian empire, which was highly regarded by contemporaries as a navigation aid for the coastal waters of the Black Sea. On May 9, 1799 Billings was promoted to Commodore.
Last years
Although it has been proposed yet on May 21, 1799 for the command of a warship, was made on November 28, 1799, the retirement. For a short time Billings remained in the Crimea and then sat down to rest in Moscow, where he died in 1806.