.1/37:f.73r. Tercentenary of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. I heard no more of the Frenchman after this; but was told that, my letters being shown King Charles, he startled at the assertion of the fixed stars places being false in the catalogue; said, with some vehemence, He must have them anew observed, examined and corrected, for the use of his seamen; and further, (when it was urged to him how necessary it was to have a good stock of observations taken for correcting the motions of the moon On its receipt he the same day shewed it to Mr. Flamstead, Sir Jonas Moore and Mr. Hook and so the new Astronomer Royal and assistant to the longitude committee showed his metal towards the end of the month with his own fusillade of papers, one in Latin to St Pierre himself and the others to Pell, in recent years published in the Correspondence : Royal to final publication Thacker and Place show us the earliest Greenwich astronomical modus operandi in the Cameram Stellatam, where we see gowned, scholarly gentlemen, one at the 3-feet voluble quadrant The curious life of Robert Hooke, the man who measured London. Since then, each day at 12.55 the ball is hoisted half way up the mast originally a signal for navigators on ships and in docks along the Thames to be prepared. First observations using the sextant were made from April 1676. A doubtless exasperated monarch (Forbes 1976: 47) summoned his Secretary of State, Joseph Williamson, who in turn, wrote a strongly-worded letter to Pell. Neo-classical in style, it faces a large lawn and seems to preside over the newer Victorian buildings. When he was younger, Wren was a keen inventor, coming up with things such as an instrument for writing in the dark. The Ordnance Office had paid Thacker for his work; perhaps there is a whiff of espionage about the Tangier commission and the cartography, and it is of a little interest that Thacker was apprehended making drawings, perhaps of its fortifications, in the Isle of Wight in 1680, though the Privy Council dismissed the case; he died in 1687. 44/334. Forbes tells us that Louis-Hyacinthe Castel was brother to Charles-Irne Castel de Saint-Pierre (16581743), abb de St Pierre. on its stand to the left, though without an observer at its eyepiece, the dials of the two Thomas Tompion year-going clocks in the wainscot in the centre, above which are the two portraits of the most powerful patrons of the Royal Observatory in its early days, Charles II, who signed the foundation warrant Established in the 17th century by King Charles II and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it was from here that the great scientists of the time precisely mapped the stars to help navigate at sea. A much-needed secondary effect of the increased interest in the history of the Royal Observatory generated by the tercentenary was that of far greater attention being paid to the well-being of the RGO Archives, in paper conservation and in a root-and-branch overhaul of the cataloguing of the entire archival collection. 50, K). in London. Navigation and astronomy were then and are today seen as inextricably linked in Britain, just as much as in France, Spain, Russia, the United States and across the globe. Sudhoffs Archiv, 86 (2), 129137. Nearly fifty years after the event it may be that Flamsteed looking back in his eclipse tables, assumed that 1661 meant 1661/2, or 1662. MS.RGO The expansion in authoritative post-war scholarship on all aspects of the early history of the Royal Observatory, which became an even greater expansion after the tercentenary in 1975, is reflected in the Reference section of this chapter and the following chapter (see Section 2.14). LObservatoire de Paris: son histoire (16671963). The proverb Quid non speramus, si nummos possideamus? Notwithstanding that, the ability to find your point of north-south location, that we refer to as latitude The height of two fixt Stars from the Horizon in exact degrees and minutes; the lesse these Stars decline from the quator or quinoctiall soe much the better; The Elevation of ye Pole exactly in Degrees & minutes; The Height of the Superiour & inferiour Limbs of the Moone, in Degrees and Minutes; Whether these two Starrs be East of West in respect Writing about six years after he had designed the observatory, Wren said in a letter to John Fell (16251686), Bishop of Oxford At the same time, the Peter Harrison Planetarium was opened in the Royal Observatory grounds. degree per literas regias (by royal letters patent), without him having been in residence as normally required of those admitted (Forbes and Dean of Christ Church on 3rd December 1681, in connection with his proposed design of the new Tom Tower gate of Christ Church, that Wee indeed built an Observatory at Greenwich not unlike what your Tower will prove; it was for the Observators habitation and a little for pompe (Care 1923: 31), the walls of which were in place and the roof covering it by late 1675. .1/1. I left monies in Mr Collinss hands to pay for them: and in my return [to Derby] visited Dr Barrow, and Mr Newton, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge; and Dr Wroe, then a fellow of Jesus College there, with whom I corresponded frequently the four following years. Another royal committee of enquiry was evidently required, and one was convened with the members who are already familiar, Brouncker and Moray again, and others whose names will repeat in this story, some with regularity and frequency; Robert Hooke had still not met by 17th October, but Moore states if my Proiect of moveing his Majesty for a yearly Annuity for yow take effect which I will attempt very shortly he was confident of success with the Chelsea refurbishment (Forbes Even in the 17th century it was unusual outside the universities for discourse to be conducted in Latin as a lingua franca but this is what seems to have happened. .gov.uk/eclipse/0111661/. Did You Know? 10 Facts About The Royal Observatory Greenwich Royal Observatory of Madrid | Official tourism website The Royal Observatory of Madrid! | Paris1972-Versailles2003 Add.MS.4393:ff.101r-v. Letter from Flamsteed to Pell, 26th April 1675. The Greenwich Meridian was chosen to be the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884. Bristol, Adam Hilger. A crucial development in his life saw someone lending him Johannes de Sacro Bosco, or Sacrobosco, (11951256) De sphaera mundi Maunder, E.W., 1900. Accedunt Guilielmi Crabtri Observationes clestes. A few days before, on 27th June/7th July 1675, Hooke had been up at 3:00am to see the beginning of the total eclipse of the Moon that morning http://astro.ukho John Birks estimates the total cost of the Abraham Sharp Forbes located the letter at The National Archives. and the sextant were housed separately from the main building, in the building already noted situated in the south-west corner of the boundary wall, the quadrant New York, Science History Publications. At 3.14pm the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed laid the foundation stone of the new Royal Observatory, Britain's first state-funded scientific research institution. At Easter 1675 (4th April in the Julian calendar) he was ordained deacon in the Church of England By the 30th June he wrote to Moore that I shall soone be aweary of Cambridge and that the company of an anatomist in the college made my being here onely not intolerable; notwithstanding such a bleak prospect, the night he wrote those words he also told Moore he intended to set up his 14ft. telescope and, if it were clear, to begin observations (Forbes et al. Excerpta Astronomica ex Epistolis D. Gulielmi Gascoignii ad D. Gulielmum Crabtreum et huius Responsis (Astronomical excerpts from the letters of William Gascoigne to William Crabtree and his replies). The world prime meridian marks the divide between the eastern and western hemispheres. by which the arc was divided to give the measurements on the limb and how they were read off is given in both a paper and book by Allan Chapman (Chapman 1976: 142145), with a second paper of his assessing just how accurate the Mural Arc was in comparison with those of instruments preceding and following Flamsteeds (Chapman 1983: 133137). In contrast to royal patronage of the learned societies in Britain and France, the foundation of the Observatoire de Paris About this difficulty, comment is often made that the opinion of Isaac Newton, whose inverse square of the radius vector law of universal gravitation would theoretically allow the calculation of the required lunar ephemerides to make possible the Moon However, it only existed for a few years and was destroyed in 1580. . In Andrewes (ed) The Quest for the Longitude, The Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts November 4th6th, 1993. HISTORY OF THE SAAO - South African Astronomical Observatory I had seen one of them at Townley; and Mr. Townley had told me his observations and rules deduced from them: which caused me to set up one at Derby, where, for three years together before this, I had noted three times a day commonly the height of the mercury in the barometer Royal Observatory, Greenwich - Wikipedia (1975b: 20). 1675. hor. 1995: 908909, A22) and Moore was once more at Greenwich on 24th July, though Hookes entry for the day notes that he could not go with him (Hooke 1935: 170). there were not so very many skilled practical observational astronomers, but one such was this young man, John Flamsteed of Derby, indeed the young Mr. Flamsteed was perhaps the only such candidate (Willmoth The London Metropolitan Archives at 40 Northampton Road, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 0HB. MS.RGO The Royal Observatory is Britain's oldest scientific institution. of the previous 15th December, specifically the provision you are to call to your assistance such Persons, as you shall think fit The 12th February 1675 was an important day for John Flamsteed, and indeed astronomy in Britain. Which, in all, adds up to an impressive litany of names in one short autobiographical paragraph; and note should be made of Moores gift of the micrometer made by Richard Towneley (16291707), in fact a development of this very important aid to astrometry at a distant location. Matters in London were moving at some speed, however, and in Moores correspondence with Flamsteed the next surviving letter is dated 15th December, attentive readers will realise the very day we know the King issued his warrant The entire collection of paper records including the Flamsteed papers of RGO Archives was then transferred to Cambridge University Library and this hiatus certainly threatened to bring the Flamsteed correspondence project to an end. Constantinople observatory of Taqi ad-Din - Wikipedia Towards the end of 1674 and armed with his Cambridge M.A. At exactly 13.00, it drops. : Cambridge In particular CUL holds the John Flamsteed Papers, which are the first class in the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, and the Portsmouth Riccioli, G.B., 1651. Archives In 2012, the Royal Observatory, the Peter Harrison Planetarium, Cutty Sark, National Maritime Museum and the Queens House all became part of Royal Museums Greenwich. to Cambridge, which eventually came to completion in 1990. Christopher Wren (16321723) by Godfrey Kneller, oil on canvas, 1711 when aged 79years. Willmoth, F.H. Astronomia iam a fundamentis integre et exacte restituta. To look at the expenditure in another way, at 4 per item the Board of Ordnance paid 2760 to buy back that 690 barrels of, we might hope, Mr. Whartons refurbished powder. The intellectual life of the pursuit of natural philosophy progressed in post-restoration Britain. , the final volume appearing in 2002, a work that by its very nature was a milestone in studies of the early years of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich Correspondence to 1993: 178) whilst Robert Hooke was yet another Royal Society fellow and its Curator of Experiments 1995: 407410, C6). Footnote 11 (Towneley, 1667.1,25: 457-458), and undertook to furnish me with telescope glasses at moderate rates. Greenwich Time and the discovery of the longitude. Thankfully, his secretary Hilary Prout was able to bring together all the material he had collected to hand on to Professor Forbess widow, Maria (Forbes et al. Jonas Moore continued to formulate his plans as reported in the next extant letter in the Flamsteed correspondence, written on the following 10th October (Forbes Royal Observatory Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images CrossRef Between them, the first two Astronomers Royal John Flamsteed and Edmond Halley plotted all the stars visible in the northern and southern hemispheres. van Helden, A., 1983. to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence, to the rectifieing the Tables of the motions to the Heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the much desired Longitude of places for the perfecting the Art of Navigation, (Flamsteed, 1675: 2, 904-905, Forbes, et al., 1995: 904, A21Footnote 1), King Charles II (16301685) attributed , Mr. Wild and the scotch man, described ObservatoryFootnote 28 (Hooke 1935: 167). It is the latter warrant and the subsequent order (Forbes As has been noted, during his autodidactic studies in his teenage years he set aside John Gadburys Genethlialogia Flamsteeds autograph copy of the first warrant in the spring of 1674, which does not appear so likely, as Wroes influence would not have extended to the Court at Whitehall. of navigation goes back to the committee set up not two years after its foundation, consisting of Brouncker, Moray, and Henry Bond, and only eighteen months before the events Brouncker and Moray, Hooke, Morland, Pell, Titus, Ward, and Wren, with Charles Scarborough and Jonas Moore had been requested by Charles to assess this method Sharps instrument, completed in around 14months, was an entirely different proposition to its various predecessors. Louise, skilful in navigating her own choppy seas of the Whitehall Court with tact, was no fool, but it may seem unlikely that a young French aristocrat would have had much interest in the discovery of the longitude; but, not wishing to promote stereotypes of gender or class, who knows? John Pell was a mathematician and teacher of mathematics with an interest in magnetic variationFootnote 7 (Forbes The good offices of Jonas Moore had it seems once again been of service (Howse The First Astronomer Royal is in this engraving towards the end of his life devoted to astronomical instrumentation and the observation Flamsteeds view, in his own words, was that St Pierre made an interest with the Duchess and, through her, was able to gain the attention of the King himself (Baily 1835: 125128, A25, D1). Flamsteeds Stars: New perspectives on the life and work of the first Astronomer Royal (16471719). (16111687), who had his own private observatory in Danzig. Stephenson, N., (ed. The same day Robert Hooke wrote in his diary (Hooke 1935, D12) that he visited Wren, who promised money for the observatory for Jonas Moore (Hooke 1935: 165, Howse 1975b: 18), then on 30th June Hooke went to Flamsteed at the Tower and they, with young Edmond Halley Book your Royal Observatory Greenwich tickets online and skip-the-line! Original manuscripts held by Cambridge University Library 1980: 23) and the King had issued a Mandate on 15th May 1674 directing the Vice Chancellor and Senate of the University of Cambridge Bristol, Institute of Physics Publishing. By the phrase a kind of Commission from the King, Flamsteed referred to the official and very formal December 1674 warrant MS.RGO catalogue nor theory of the Moon However, Moore died a few years after the Observatory was built and thereafter there was for decades no clear authority to govern and direct the work of the Observatory its purpose was clear but the path to the goal was obscured; nonetheless the acquisition of the essential Mural Arc in 1689 gave Flamsteed the instrument he needed to have the heavens anew observed with sufficient accuracy. Louis, duchesse dAubigny in France. In order to which it was agreed that this company would continue their weekly meetings on Wednesday, at 3 oclock, of the term time .1/50 K (Baily (1835) numeration, vol. Discover the latestnews, offers, and events. This location had the advantages of having solid foundations in place from the old castle, as well as being located on high ground in a royal park. to William Brouncker 24th November 1669; the original MS has not survived and for this publication Willmoth reconstructed the letter from the version in Rigaud vol. Vistas in Astronomy, 20, 7980. ambition of being ordained into the clergy at Christmas the previous year having come to nothing and all these developments taking place during the earlier months of the year, with Moores promised salaried post in the government service coming good, his prospects had changed. Forbes had undertaken a large amount of the necessary preliminary research work, including obtaining numerous copies from widely scattered libraries and archives with Flamsteed and Flamsteed associated holdings, as a preparation for this publication Astronomy Department, University of Virginia (Research Professor), US Naval Observatory (Retired/Director), Rockville, MD, USA, HM Nautical Almanac Office (Retired), UK Hydrographic Office, Taunton, UK. Stewart continues followed by an M.A. 1980: 2) but, whereas in Paris the Acadmie royale was not created until 1666, in Britain the King soon made known his approval of the aims of the group formed at Gresham College. The final account totalled 520.9s.1d (Forbes et al. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 47 (1) January, 1731. .1/33:f.28r. which is to say it was for mounting on a wall precisely aligned in the north-south meridian ready for installation by the time Not so Jonas Moore and, in any event, fortune was to favour the persistent and industrious. So far no analysis of its astronomical contents has been made. Adam J. Perkins . from a number of contemporary accounts,Footnote 6 which have, from the mid-1970s and the tercentenary of the Royal Observatorys foundation, for 30years or so attracted wider scholarly interest (see Section 2.14). In the Cameram Stellatam, pride-of-place was held by the twin year-going (so only wound once-a-year) Tompion clocks, each having a beat of two seconds meaning that the pendulum length was about 4 metres or 13feet, mounted behind the wainscot of the north-east wall (Howse 1971). ADS History of the Royal Observatory | Royal Museums Greenwich I delivered them to Dr. Pell, Feb. 19, 16745; who returning me his answer some time The Jantar Mantar, Jaipur - UNESCO World Heritage Centre Papers of John Flamsteed. John Flamsteeds original essay on Johann Hecker and his ephemeris For this, her research involved making extensive use of John Flamsteeds papers, at that time 1997: 2125) that outlines a substantial portion of what we know of the relevant events of the months at the end of 1674 and beginning of the next year, is not known certainly, but Willmoth finds plausible (Willmoth 1993: 178) Forbess suggestion that he was Louis-Hyacinthe Castel de St Pierre (Forbes 1976: 48). That it was sometimes the habitation of the younger branches of the royal family; sometimes the residence of a favourite mistress; sometimes a prison; and sometimes a place of defence. [from Derby] to see London: visited Mr Oldenburg [and] Mr Collins. of France, his first cousin a central figure in the history of the Observatory at Greenwich. et al. However shadowy a personage was St Pierre, he showed himself shrewd enough to have his ideas reach the ear of the greatest of the kingdom by, at this period of our history, an infallibly direct route, which is to say via the first among equals of the Kings mistresses of the day. Labour and other costs were covered by the sale of decayed gunpowder for recycling. 1995: 7881) wrote of his obligation to him and his gratitude, continuing to ask him for further help by concealeing what I have procurd until such time as it would be appropriate. Kepleriana, defensa & promota; Excerpta ex epistolis ad Crabtrum suum; Observationum clestium catalogus; Lun theoria nova. (16321723) and Robert Hooke (16351703), the Royal Observatory, was built (Figure 2.1). before Charles issued his warrants to found the Royal Observatory. .1/36:ff.61r-62r. Of much more interest to the historian of the Royal Observatory, Thacker must have executed his 1675 commission from Moore as, though his original drawings are lost, the resulting engravings by Francis Place (16471748) of York very much survive in two relatively complete collections, the set Samuel Pepys between 16361657 (Forbes 1976: 8). Something of this had been noticed by Mr. Boyle, but not prosecuted, by reason that daily watching its motions and noting them was perhaps thought a trouble that such a trifle as the weather-glass deserved not. s creation in the history of the Greenwich Observatorys foundation certainly arises from the practical nature of the experimental applications of science that from its earliest days was at the centre of the Societys ethos, but also in the specific application of observation Fraught with disputes and disagreements, the full publication of his results was delayed until years after his death. and Flamsteed were at the good colonels residence (Hooke 1935: 146147). a favourite palace of Henry VIII (along with Hampton Court) and the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth I. Journal for the History of Astronomy, May, 22, 68, 127173. 1995: 309311, A13) that was so exceeding good, a previous firkin of which, the gift of Stephen Flamsteed, who evidently knew his own business very well, had been broached by Richard Towneley and Moore during the previous summer (Forbes et al. , first when Lesley Murdin (Murdin 1985) took up the editorial work on the Flamsteed correspondence New York, Copernicus Books/Springer Science. of finding longitude the celebrated lunar Original manuscripts held by Willmoth was, therefore, able to see the full three-volumes of the correspondence through to publication On 7th March an irate St Pierre called on John Pell, but as there was no interpreter present and neither had an adequate grasp of the others native tongue, the meeting must have been rather fraught. 1975a: 19); both had similar dimensions, this instrument having a 6ft 9ins (2.06m) radius.