As the founder of The Poly he championed invention - and now Falmouth's university campus wants to formally recognise the life and work of Robert Were Fox.

David Garwood, campus presentation manager with FX Plus, has applied for listed building consent to fix a commemorative Blue Plaque onto Rosehill Studio, at the entrance to the Woodlane Campus.

Fox, a geologist and mine owner in the 19th century, was born into a prominent Quaker family in Fowey and from 1819 to 1854 served as United States Consul at Falmouth.

He carried out research into geology, electricity and magnetism, although his earliest experiments were in the elasticity of high-pressure steam, with the aim of improving the steam engines used to pump out the mines.

In 1815, he began to investigate the internal temperature of the earth and was the first person to prove that heat increased with depth, but also that the rate of increase slowed with depth.

He also discovered that metallic veins in the mines had electro-magnetic properties and in 1832 his work on magnetism led him to develop an improved form of compass that could be used by Polar explorers.

He went on to develop a dip circle - a compass that measures the angle between the horizon and the Earth's magnetic field - that worked at all latitudes and was robust enough to work onboard ship, with the design promoted by explorers including John Franklin and Francis Beaufort from the 1830s to the 1870s.

One was used by Sir James Clark Ross in 1837 on his Antarctic expedition to discover the position of the South magnetic pole.

In 1833 Fox, together with his daughters Anna Maria and Caroline, founded the Cornwall Polytechnic Society, the first of its kind in England. It had a mission to ‘…stimulate the ingenuity of the young, to promote industrious habits among the working classes, and to elicit the inventive powers of the community at large.’ With committees in towns all over Cornwall, as well as a ladies’ committee, in 1835 it became the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society and The Poly continues in Falmouth to this day.

Fox wrote 52 papers for scientific journals, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1848 and was a member of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia and the National Society of Washington.

Cornwall Council has until April 13 to make a decision on whether to allow the plaque on the listed building.

With thanks to David Garwood