Orlando Whistlecraft


Orlando Whistlecraft was an early English meteorologist who was born and died in the Eastern England village of Thwaite, Suffolk.
He was the son of James Whistlecraft, a farmer, and Susan Brooke. He attended school first in Stowmarket then aged 10 at Robert Burcham Clamp’s school in St Nicholas Street, Ipswich. Whistlecraft returned to Thwaite in 1829 to run a school. In 1843 he turned to shopkeeping in order to devote more time to his passion of meteorology.
He was most notable for Whistlecraft's Weather Almanac published annually from 1856 to 1884 and for The Climate of England and Rural Gleanings. The National Meteorological Archive in Exeter contains his weather diaries for Thwaite from 1827 to 1892.