Joseph Huddart was born at Allonby in Cumberland. His Father, who was a shoemaker and farmer, desiring to give his son the best education in his power, sent him to a day-school kept by Mr. Wilson, the clergyman of the village. Here young Huddart acquired a knowledge of the elements of mathematics, including astronomy, sciences in which he attained great proficiency in after life. When quite a boy, Huddart gave indications of an original mind, combined with great industry and unwearied patience. Having fallen in with a treatise by Mungo Murray on ship building, he was so pleased with its clear directions, that he set to work and succeeded, after immense labour and ingenuity, in making a model of a seventy-four gun-ship, with ribs, planks, and bolts complete. When engaged in herding his father's cows, he used to carry out into the country a desk of his own manufacture, employing his time in reading, and mathematical drawing and calculations. As Huddart grew up he evinced a strong bias for a sea-faring life, and an event occurred in 1756 which decided his future career. In that year large shoals of herrings came into the Solway Firth, and the elder Huddart took advantage of the circumstance to trade in conjunction with a Herring Fishery Company, while his son took his place with others in the boats, and soon displayed so much skill and ability in their management that he became noted among his fellows for superiority of knowledge in nautical matters. Young Huddart continued more or less in this new employment until his father's death, in 1762, when he succeeded to a share in the fishery, and at once took the command of a sloop employed in carrying the salted herrings to Cork and other parts of Ireland, for the supply of the West India markets. These voyages gave him a thorough knowledge of St. George's Channel, convinced him of the insufficiency of the charts then in use, and ultimately led to his making a complete survey of that sea, and to the subsequent publication of his own most valuable chart. In 1768 Huddart, with the assistance of his uncle, designed and built a vessel for himself, and named it the Patience, every timber in it having been moulded with his own hand. In this vessel he made his first voyage to North America, and continued to sail in her until the year 1771, when he was induced by Sir Richard Hotham, with whom he had become acquainted, to enter the East India Mercantile Marine, in which service he continued for many years, and realized a considerable independency. Captain Huddart's scientific knowledge and high character introduced him into the Trinity House as an Elder Brother, and also into the Committee of the Ramsgate Harbour Trust, and into the London and East India Dock Directions. At the Trinity House all inquiries relating to lights, lighthouses and charts were chiefly referred to him, while the lighthouses on Hurst Point were built under his superintendence and immediate direction.