John Lort Stokes

John Lort Stokes was a Royal Navy officer and surveyor whose career is associated with exploration and hydrographic work in the nineteenth century. He served in a navy that remained deeply involved in charting distant coasts and making empire more navigable.

Surveying was essential to trade, naval movement, and colonial administration, and officers like Stokes contributed directly to the practical knowledge on which maritime power depended.

He is significant because his biography links the Royal Navy to the long-term production of coastal and navigational knowledge. Stokes belongs to the hydrographic history of British sea power.