Abstract
In Britain, embroiled in the global conflicts of the early 19th century, the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, was an established national institution, founded as it was for the perfection of discovering the longitude at sea, performing its regular astronomical observations and cataloguing the results. Additionally, Nevil Maskelyne (1732–1811), the Astronomer Royal, edited the Nautical Almanac, which involved a large amount of extraneous work. Inheriting the Royal Observatory in 1811 John Pond (1767–1836), the next Astronomer Royal, modernised the instrumentation, much improving the accuracy of the results, but paying less attention to the onerous publication of the Almanac. The testing of the Royal Navy’s chronometers was a further burden on the Astronomer Royal and his staff, who sometimes lacked reliability, and errors crept into the Almanac. In 1818 these difficulties lead to the appointment of a superintendent to oversee the Almanac’s production, the first step on a path leading by 1832 to the foundation of Britain’s Nautical Almanac Office (NAO), greatly enhancing the reputation of the publication. By the end of the century, co-operation between the UK NAO and other international almanac offices was agreed at the Paris Conference of 1896.
Meanwhile, in the United States the American Nautical Almanac Office was founded in 1849, with C.H. Davis as its first Superintendent . That office is rich in history from many perspectives: as one of the oldest scientific institutions in the US government; for promoting American navigation; for its many scientists, mathematicians and “computers” who deserve to be better known; for its leading role in international cooperation in science; and, not least, for its role in advancing astronomy in areas including planetary theory, astronomical constants, ephemerides, and related fields. In Part II of this chapter we attempt a coherent account of the highlights during the 19th century. The history of the Office during that century may be divided into two broad eras: the Founding Era (1849–1865) and the Newcomb era (1877–1897), bridged by a decadal time of transition. These eras played out, respectively, in Cambridge, Massachusetts and in various parts of Washington, DC, before the move in 1893 to the US Naval Observatory’s present location on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC.
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Notes
- 1.
See the section on Manuscript, archival and library sources at the end for information on these origianl manuscripts.
- 2.
Nevil Maskelyne certainly did become increasingly aware of the growing inaccuracies of his instruments (Howse 1989: 198).
- 3.
An altazimuth telescope is one built to rotate its azimuth 360° about a vertical axis, with a telescope mount able to move up and down in altitude about a horizontal axis; if it is an altazimuth circle then the altitude mount can also rotate through a full circle of 360°.
- 4.
A mural circle telescope has an altitude mount and can also rotate through a full circle of 360°, but is fixed to a wall in the precise north-south azimuth, the meridian.
- 5.
A transit instrument’s purpose was to allow observers to time the exact moment at which a star crossed the meridian as viewed through the telescope’s eyepiece. The instrument has a telescope with pivots mounted on masonry piers standing east and west of the mounted telescope, which supported a fixed east-west axis enabling the telescope to move up and down to the required altitude , but that was, consequently, always held precisely in the north-south meridian.
- 6.
- 7.
Henry Andrews, who had worked on the Nautical Almanac calculations from the time of the discovery in 1781 by William Herschel of the planet since named Uranus and the consequent necessarily increased computational load to calculate its ephemeris, was in 1815 the subject of Correspondence regarding the award of £150 to H. Andrews for his work on the calculation of the Nautical Almanac; see also reference A10.
- 8.
For the coinage of the noun ‘scientist’ by William Whewell in the 1830s see the Oxford English Dictionary entry at the URL https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/172698?redirectedFrom=scientist#eid
- 9.
The article by Geoffrey Cantor (2009) gives the remarkable range of Thomas Young’s achievements in the fields of vision, light, solid mechanics, energy, physiology, language, musical harmony, Egyptology, including the first attempts at the translation of Rosetta Stone, though he originally became a physician who had a practice at 48 Welbeck Street. In 1801 Young was appointed Professor of Natural History at the Royal Institution, delivering over ninety lectures during his tenure, but retiring in 1803 over his concerns the work was interfering with his medical practice. Young joined the staff of St George’s Hospital in 1811 and five years later he was secretary to a commission investigating the length of the seconds pendulum with the aim of standardising the yard length. He was Secretary to the Board of Longitude in 1818 and Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac 1818–1829.
- 10.
Founded on 10th March 1820 following a meeting of 14 pioneering fellows on the previous 12th January, William Herschel was the first president of the Astronomical Society of London. John Pond was one of the Society’s earliest members and was elected its first vice-president (McCrea 1975: 18); the Royal Charter from William IV on 7th March 1831 granted the new body the name The Royal Astronomical Society .
- 11.
The churchyard survived the rebuilding of St Margaret’s in Lee that took place a few years after Pond’s death; Nathaniel Bliss, the Astronomer Royal who succeeded James Bradley is also buried in this churchyard (B4).
- 12.
Cambridge was awarded city status by H.M. King George VI towards the end of his reign, in 1951.
- 13.
Interestingly, this volume of papers (A3) also includes Airy’s correspondence on the transfer of the Board of Longitude papers into the keeping of the Royal Observatory.
- 14.
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Acknowledgements
In writing the first part of Chapter 5 and as indicated at the beginning of Chapters 2 and 3, the author notes the expansion in authoritative post-war scholarship on all aspects of the history of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, an even greater expansion after the tercentenary of the Royal Observatory in 1975, which is reflected in the bibliographical sources listed under the Reference sections of this chapter. The author of the first part of this chapter acknowledges with gratitude the use of the freely available images provided by the National Portrait Gallery, London, the Wellcome Library, London, and the Creative Commons and Public Domain images freely available via Wikimedia.
The American Nautical Almanac Office sections, the second part of this chapter, are based on Steven Dick’s article The History of the American Nautical Almanac Office (Fiala and Dick 1999).
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References
References
5.1.1 Manuscript, Archival and Library Sources
As the former Curator of Scientific Manuscripts and RGO Archivist in Cambridge University Library (CUL, situated at West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DR, United Kingdom) the first author has been able to make extensive use of CUL’s collections of original manuscripts and the wealth of digitised material available from the Cambridge Digital Library, via the URL link containing the element ‘cudl’. These collections come under the responsibility of CUL’s Department of Modern Archives and Manuscripts, formerly the Department of Manuscripts and University Archives. Of particular relevance to the first section of this chapter are the collections in the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives. These include the papers of the Astronomers Royal Nevil Maskelyne, John Pond, George Airy and William Christie, as well as the records of the Board of Longitude. In this section these documents carry the prefix MS.RGO .
For ease of reference to documents that have been used within this chapter the documents’ class references have been divided into two lists;
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A.
The Archives of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (at CUL). In particular the Papers of George Biddell Airy (A1) and Papers of the Board of Longitude (A8).
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B.
Other Archives accessed;
The Archives of the Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, Mayfair, London W1J 0BQ.
The National Archives (TNA), Bessant Drive, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU, formerly Public Record Office, and
Thus the document is indexed via the letter A or B from the appropriate section, followed by the number from the respective list of References to Original Manuscripts.
5.1.2 References to Original Manuscripts
A. Original manuscripts held by Cambridge University Library : Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives.
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1.
MS.RGO .6. Papers of George Biddell Airy. Includes correspondence with the Nautical Almanac Office; search the on-line catalogue at https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180%2FRGO%206
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2.
MS.RGO .6/1:ff.145-191. The full story of Airy’s relevant dealings with their Lordships 1834-1835 may be read from the original documents preserved by him in Section 4, Correspondence of GBA with the Admiralty before 1835 October 1. Airy took up his post as Astronomer Royal on 1st October. For the Admiralty’s side of matters see reference B3.
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3.
MS.RGO .6/1:f.183r. Airy to [Admiralty] from Cambridge Observatory, 30th August 1835. Interestingly, this volume of papers also includes Airy’s correspondence on the transfer of the Board of Longitude papers into the keeping of the Royal Observatory.
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4.
MS.RGO .6/22:ff.52r-52v. Report of the Visitation of the Royal Observatory 11th July 1806.
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5.
MS.RGO .6/22:ff.88v-91r. Report of the Visitation of the Royal Observatory 19th July [1816].
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6.
MS.RGO .6/22:f.89v. Report of the Visitation of the Royal Observatory 19th July [1816].
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7.
MS.RGO .7. Papers of William Henry Mahoney Christie. Includes correspondence with the Nautical Almanac Office, which occupy two large volumes, though there are a large number of references in the on-line catalogue at https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180%2FRGO%207
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8.
MS.RGO .14. Papers of the Board of Longitude . Online at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/longitude and https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180%2FRGO%2014%2F1
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9.
MS.RGO .14/1:ff.79r-82v. The original Act as printed in 1818; there are a number of printings of this act and of the subsequent amending Act of 1821. See online at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00001/165 et seq.
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10.
MS.RGO .14/1:ff.204r-213v. Henry Andrews’s letters dated from Royston between 25th February and 22nd May 1815, as well as the further correspondence at https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00001/395 et seq.
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11.
MS.RGO .14/5:pp.78-79. Nevil Maskelyne’s memorial submitted to the Board of Longitude on 9th February 1765, recorded in the volume of the Confirmed Minutes 1737–1779. https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00005/82 et seq.
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12.
MS.RGO .14/5:pp.93-94. Maskelyne’s proposal was given formal approval at the Board’s meeting of 30th May 1765. https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00005/97 et seq.
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13.
MS.RGO .14/16. Printers’ and publishers’ accounts: Miscellaneous papers regarding the accounts of computers under J. Pond, Astronomer Royal, 1815-1824; see the plethora of receipts and cheques in this volume https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-RGO-00014-00016/.
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14.
MS.RGO .18. Greenwich Observations . Online at https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180%2FRGO%2018.
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15.
MS.RGO .18/19-20, 22 and 31-39. Information on all the Observatory’s instruments for the first decade of the circle’s use are in the Greenwich Observations .
B. Original Manuscripts held by other bodies
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1.
13.P.56. William Herschel correspondence of Herschel, 7 Aug. 1795, the Royal Astronomical Society Archives.
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2.
1828 Act. Texts are taken directly from https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo4/9/66/enacted/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true.
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3.
ADM 190. Records of the Hydrographer of the Navy, and Royal Greenwich Observatory held at The National Archives, see https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1899. See also (A2) for the Royal Observatory’s records.
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4.
Article 1258. Details about burials of Pond and Nathaniel Bliss, the Astronomer Royal who succeeded James Bradley see http://www.royalobservatorygreenwich.org/articles.php?article=1258
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Perkins, A.J., Dick, S.J. (2020). The British and American Nautical Almanacs in the 19th Century. In: Seidelmann, P., Hohenkerk, C. (eds) The History of Celestial Navigation. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43631-5_5
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