Aussie historian, author & entertainer Jim Haynes joins Overnight each week for his unique knowledge of the not-so-famous characters from Australia’s history. This week Jim shines the spotlight on Clement Lindley Wragge – the mad meteorologist.

Clement Lindley Wragge (18 September 1852 – 10 December 1922) was a meteorologist born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England, but moved to Oakamoor, Staffordshire as a child.

He set up the Wragge Museum in Stafford following a trip around the world. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and in 1879 was elected Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in London.

Clement Wragge worked for the Surveyor-General’s Department, South Australia 1876-1878 when he returned to England. During the 1880s he came back to Australia and established a number of observatories. He was Queensland Government Meteorologist 1887-1902.

To the end of his life, he was interested in Theosophy and spiritualism. During his tour of India he met with Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam who had claimed to be the Mahdi, the messianic redeemer awaited by Muslims.

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