The origins and early years of the Magnetic and Meteorological department at Greenwich Observatory, 1834-1848^*

* An earlier version of this article won the Annals of Science Best Paper Prize 2016

SUMMARY

As one of his first acts upon becoming Astronomer Royal in 1835, George Airy made moves to set up a new observatory at Greenwich to study the Earth’s magnetic field. This paper uses Airy’s correspondence to argue that, while members of the reform movement in British science were putting pressure on the Royal Observatory to branch out into geomagnetism and meteorology, Airy established the magnetic observatory on his own initiative, ahead of Alexander von Humboldt’s request for British participation in the worldwide magnetic charting project that later became known as the ‘Magnetic Crusade’. That the Greenwich magnetic observatory did not become operational until 1839 was due to a series of incidental factors that provide a case study in the technical and political obstacles to be overcome in building a new government observatory. Airy attached less importance to meteorology than he did to geomagnetism. In 1840, he set up a full programme of meteorological observations at Greenwich – and thus turned his magnetic observatory into the ‘Magnetic and Meteorological department’ – only as the price of foiling an attempt by Edward Sabine and others in the London scientific elite to found a rival magnetic and meteorological observatory. Studying the origins of Airy’s Magnetic and Meteorological department highlights how important the context of other institutions and trends in science is to understanding the development of Britain’s national observatory.

Acknowledgements

This article was made possible by a Sackler Short-Term Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, and here I must formally thank Royal Museums Greenwich for the award of the Fellowship and also for the use of their library and office facilities throughout its duration. In particular, I must thank Nigel Rigby, the National Maritime Museum’s Head of Research; and Louise Devoy, Curator of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, for their help and constructive discussions. Louise Devoy and Emma Lefley gave great help in sourcing the illustrations used in this article; I acknowledge, with gratitude, the permission of Royal Museums Greenwich to use them. Thanks are also due to Lizelle de Jager at the National Maritime Museum for all her organisational assistance. In addition, I have benefited from invaluable discussions with Emily Winterburn and Graham Dolan, as well as the comments of the two anonymous referees who reviewed this paper.

Notes

* An earlier version of this article won the Annals of Science Best Paper Prize 2016

1 James Glaisher, ‘The Magnetic and Meteorological Royal Observatory, just completed at Greenwich’, Illustrated London News, 16 March 1844.

2 G. B. Airy, Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors, Read at the Annual Visitation of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, 1844, June 1, RGO 17.1.1, p. 19. See also: Allan Chapman, ‘The Observers Observed: Charles Dickens at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in 1850’, The Antiquarian Astronomer, 2 (December 2005), 9–20.

3 Chapman, ‘The Observers Observed’ (note 2).

4 Wilfrid Airy (ed.), Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), p. 126; A. J. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory. Volume 2: Recent History (1835-1975) (London: Taylor and Francis, 1975), p. 96; William Hunter McCrea, The Royal Greenwich Observatory (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1975), p. 23; E. Walter Maunder, The Royal Greenwich Observatory: A Glance at its History and Work (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1900), pp. 228–29.

5 Marie Boas Hall, All Scientists Now (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), esp. pp. 45–82; David Philip Miller, ‘The revival of the physical sciences in Britain, 1815-1840’, Osiris, 2nd series, 2 (1986), 107–34; Jack Morrell and Arnold Thackray, Gentlemen of Science: Early Years of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), esp. pp. 36–63.

6 Susan Faye Cannon, Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period (Folkestone and New York: Dawson and Science History Publications, 1978), pp. 29–43. For the somewhat complex relationship between the scientific and political reform movements, see Roy MacLeod, ‘Whigs and Savants: Reflections on the Reform Movement in the Royal Society, 1830-48’, in Metropolis and Province: Science in British Culture 1780-1850, edited by Ian Inkster and Jack Morrell (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983), 55–90; and Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (note 5), pp. 21 and 24–28. Note also Airy’s son Wilfrid’s assertion as to Airy’s liberal political beliefs – as emphasized by his voting, while still Plumian Professor, to abolish religious tests for students at Cambridge. Airy, Autobiography (note 4), pp. 6–7.

7 Andrew Warwick, Masters of Theory: Cambridge and the Rise of Mathematical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), pp. 72–75.

8 Miller, ‘The revival of the physical sciences in Britain’ (note 5), p. 110.

9 Miller, ‘The revival of the physical sciences in Britain’ (note 5), p. 128.

10 John Cawood, ‘Terrestrial Magnetism and the Development of International Collaboration in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Annals of Science, 34 (1977), 551–87.

11 John Cawood, ‘The Magnetic Crusade: Science and Politics in Early Victorian Britain’, Isis, 70 (1979), 492–518, (see esp. pp. 506, 511 and 514–16 on Airy); Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (note 5), pp. 353–70 and 523–31. On British involvement in the global magnetic effort more generally, see: Christopher Carter, ‘Magnetic fever: Global Imperialism and Empiricism in the Nineteenth Century’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 99 (2009), i–xxvi and 1–168; Vidar Enebakk, ‘Hansteen’s Magnetometer and the Origin of the Magnetic Crusade’, British Journal for the History of Science, 47 (2014), 587–608.

12 Vladimir Jankovic, Reading the skies. A cultural history of English weather, 1650-1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), pp. 156–67. Jan Golinski, though, has qualified this, and makes the case that in eighteenth-century Britain there was an increasing awareness of a national climate and an appreciation of climatic differences between Britain and other parts of the world. See Jan Golinski, British Weather and the Climate of Enlightenment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), esp. p. 6.

13 Katharine Anderson, Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), esp. pp. 83–130.

14 Anderson, Predicting the Weather (note 13), pp. 95–99 and 142–44.

15 David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg and H. Otto Sibum, ‘Introduction: Observatory Techniques in Nineteenth-Century Science and Society’, in The Heavens on Earth: Observatories and Astronomy in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture, edited by David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg and H. Otto Sibum (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), pp. 1–32 (pp. 2–4); David Aubin, ‘A history of observatory sciences and techniques’, in Astronomy at the Frontiers of Science, edited by Jean-Pierre Lasota (Heidelberg, 2011), pp. 109–21.

16 A. J. Meadows, Greenwich Observatory (note 4); McCrea, The Royal Greenwich Observatory (note 4).

17 Robert W. Smith, ‘A National Observatory Transformed: Greenwich in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 22 (1991), 5–20; Simon Schaffer, ‘Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation’, Science in Context, 2 (1988), 115–45.

18 Meadows, Greenwich Observatory (note 4), p. 103. Airy gave cautious support to the system of weather ‘forecasts’ instigated by Robert FitzRoy, head of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade. Even here, however, he did not claim that these forecasts could predict the weather with astronomical precision. See Anderson, Predicting the Weather (note 13), p. 40.

19 Olin J. Eggen, ‘Airy, George Biddell’, in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975), 84–87 (p. 87).

20 S. R. C. Malin, ‘Geomagnetism at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 37 (1996), 65–74, pp. 67–68.

21 Rebekah Higgitt, ‘A British national observatory: the building of the New Physical Observatory at Greenwich, 1889-1898’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 47 (2014), 609–35 (p. 618).

22 Maunder, The Royal Greenwich Observatory (note 4), p. 116.

23 Allan Chapman, ‘Private research and public duty: George Biddell Airy and the search for Neptune’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 19 (1988), 121–39. See also: Allan Chapman, ‘Science and the Public Good: George Biddell Airy (1801-92) and the Concept of a Scientific Civil Servant’, in Science, Politics and the Public Good, edited by Nicolaas A. Rupke (Basingstoke, 1988), 36–62.

24 Smith, ‘A National Observatory Transformed’ (note 17), p. 18.

25 Barrow to President and Council of Royal Society, 13 March 1816, Royal Society, Greenwich Observatory papers, Volume 1 (hereafter RS:MS.371) 15. Also cited in Derek Howse, Greenwich Observatory. Volume 3: The Buildings and Instruments (London: Taylor and Francis, 1975), p. 123.

26 Howse, Greenwich Observatory (note 25), pp. 154, 163 and 164 and Malin, ‘Geomagnetism at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich’ (note 20), both locate the site of Pond’s magnetic observatory in the approximate position of the present-day ‘onion dome’ containing the 28-inch refractor. However, a detailed plan of the Royal Observatory dating from 1845 places it somewhat further south, approximately half-way between the south-east building and Airy’s new magnetic observatory of 1838; see Plan of the Buildings and Grounds of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, with Explanation and History; (Extracted from the Introduction to the Greenwich Observations, 1845 (London, 1847), in RGO 18.101.

27 See, for example, ‘Magnetic Observations. Variation of the Magnetic Needle constructed by Mr. Dollond’, in Astronomical Observations made at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in the years M. DCCC. XVII. M. DCCC. XVIII. and M. DCCC. XIX. By John Pond, Astronomer Royal, and Fellow of the Royal Society. Published by the President and Council of the Royal Society, at the public expense, in obedience to His Majesty’s Command, Vol. III (London, 1820).

28 ‘At a Visitation of the Royal Observatory’, 4 June 1824, RS:MS.371.28.

29 P. S. Laurie, ‘The Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory – I: 1710-1830’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 7 (1967), 169–85 (p. 183).

30 Papers of the Board of Visitors: Minutes, 4 June 1831, Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, Cambridge University Library (hereafter RGO) 55.1.1.

31 Papers of the Board of Visitors: Minutes, 13 June 1831, RGO 55.1.1.

32 Papers of the Board of Visitors: Minutes, 6 June 1835, RGO 55.1.1.

33 [Earl] De Grey (First Lord of the Admiralty in Sir Robert Peel’s first cabinet) to Duke of Sussex, 3 April 1835. Papers of the Board of Visitors: Letters and papers read to the Board, RGO 55.2.1.

34 Eric Forbes, Greenwich Observatory. Volume 1: Origins and Early History (1675-1835) (London: Taylor and Francis, 1975), pp. 35–36.

35 Howse, Greenwich Observatory (note 25), p. 123.

36 See, for example, Astronomical Observations made at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in the years M. DCCC. XVII. M. DCCC. XVIII. and M. DCCC. XIX (note 27).

37 ‘Meteorological Journal 1819 December 1 to 1831 December 31 Mr. Pond’, RGO 5.242.

38 Report of Royal Society Meteorological Committee, 23 December 1830, in Royal Society, Minutes of Council (manuscript) (hereafter RS:CMO.11), 20 January 1831.

39 Ibid., 20 January 1831.

40 Report of the Meteorological Committee to His Royal Highness the President and Council’, 26 January 1831, RS:MS.371.59.

41 RS:CMO.11, 3 March 1831.

42 ‘At a Visitation of the Royal Observatory’, 4 June 1824, RS:MS.371.28; Papers of the Board of Visitors: Minutes, 4 June 1831 and 13 June 1831, RGO 55.1.1; P. S. Laurie, ‘The Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory – II: 1830-1965’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 8 (1967), 334–53 (p. 334); Miller, ‘The revival of the physical sciences in Britain’ (note 5), esp. pp. 111–13 and 129–32.

43 Lee T. Macdonald, Kew Observatory and the Evolution of Victorian Science (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), pp. 24–49; Lee T. Macdonald, ‘Making Kew Observatory: the Royal Society, the British Association and the politics of early Victorian science’, The British Journal for the History of Science, 48 (2015), 409–33, p. 413.

44 Herschel to Airy, 30 January 1831, RGO 6.804.20.

45 James D. Forbes, ‘Report upon the Recent Progress and Present State of Meteorology’, Report of the First and Second Meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; at York in 1831, and at Oxford in 1832; Including its Proceedings, Recommendations, and Transactions (London: John Murray, 1833), 196–258, p. 197.

46 Forbes, ‘Report’ (note 45), p. 198.

47 Forbes, ‘Report’ (note 45), p. 258.

48 Frank A. J. L. James, ‘Christie, Samuel Hunter (1784-1865)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

49 S. Hunter Christie, ‘Report on the State of our Knowledge respecting the Magnetism of the Earth.’ Report of the Third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; held at Cambridge in 1833 (London, 1834), 105–30, p. 128.

50 Christie, ‘Report’ (note 49), p. 130. Christie’s comment about the lack of magnetic observations in a national observatory in Britain is also quoted in Cawood, ‘Terrestrial Magnetism’ (note 10), p. 584.

51 Airy, Autobiography (note 4), pp. 16–22. At present, there is no book-length biography of Airy. Short biographies include, Eggen, ‘Airy, George Biddell’ (note 19); and Allan Chapman, ‘Airy, Sir George Biddell (1801–1892), Oxford Dictionary National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

52 Günther Buttmann, The Shadow of the Telescope, A Biography of John Herschel (Guildford and London: Lutterworth, 1974), esp. pp. 21–45.

53 Gregory A. Good, ‘A Shift of View: Meteorology in John Herschel’s Terrestrial Physics’, in Intimate Universality: Local and Global Themes in the History of Weather and Climate, edited by James Rodger Fleming, Vladimir Jankovic and Deborah R. Coen (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications/USA, 2006), pp. 35–67.

54 G. B. Airy, ‘Report on the Progress of Astronomy during the present Century.’ Report of the First and Second Meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; at York in 1831, and at Oxford in 1832; including its Proceedings, Recommendations, and Transactions (London: John Murray, 1833), pp. 125–89, p. 184.

55 Airy to Herschel, 26 April 1826, Royal Society, Herschel Papers (hereafter RS:HS) 1.23.

56 Airy to Herschel, 24 April 1834, RS:HS 1.63. Airy’s phrase ‘gazing observatories’ might possibly be a reference to a remark by Herschel in the 1820s that he was ‘sick of star-gazing’ (Buttmann, The Shadow of the Telescope (note 52), p. 51.

57 Instructions for Making and Registering Meteorological Observations in Southern Africa, and Other Countries in the South Seas, as also at Sea, pamphlet, published 1835, in Royal Society Tracts, 146/6.

58 Airy to Herschel, 10 July 1835, RS:HS 1.69.

59 Airy, Autobiography (note 4), pp. 103 and 104.

60 Airy to Duke of Sussex, 19 May 1834, RGO 6.1.145.

61 Airy, Autobiography (note 4), p. 104.

62 Auckland to Airy, 11 June 1835, RGO 6.1.156.

63 Airy to [Auckland], 15 June 1835, RGO 6.1.156.

64 Auckland to Airy, 22 June 1835, RGO 6.1.161.

65 Airy to Barrow, 29 September 1835, RGO 6.1.188.

66 Document headed: ‘By the Commissioners for executing the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland &c.’, dated 7 October 1835, RGO 6.1.198.

67 Airy, Autobiography (note 4), p. 93.

68 Roger Hutchins, British University Observatories 1772-1939 (Aldershot, 2008), p. 88.

69 Christie to Airy, 12 November 1834, RGO 6.675.5.

70 James Gabriel O’Hara has suggested that Airy became interested in geomagnetism following resolutions passed at the 1834 BAAS meeting, proposing that Britain join the continental magnetic effort. However, it is clear from the evidence presented in this paper that Airy had become interested in this subject well before the BAAS held its meeting in September 1834. James Gabriel O’Hara, ‘Gauss and the Royal Society: The reception of his ideas on magnetism in Britain (1832-1842)’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 38 (1983), 17–78, pp. 20–21 and 30.

71 In his autobiography, Airy recounts that at the beginning of 1836, he began using a ‘copying press’ to keep carbon copies of his outgoing letters, and did so for the rest of his career at Greenwich. Airy, Autobiography (note 4), p. 123. This is borne out by Airy’s papers at Cambridge University Library, which contain copies of his outgoing letters from 1836 onwards.

72 Lloyd to Airy, 3 November 1835, RGO 6.675.7.

73 Forbes to Airy, 4 November 1835, RGO 6.675.8; Forbes to Airy, 21 November 1835, RGO 6.676.4.

74 Gauss to Airy, 7 November 1835, RGO 6.675.10. James Gabriel O’Hara, ‘Gauss and the Royal Society (note 70), pp. 30–41, describes Airy’s correspondence with Gauss, Christie and Lloyd, though in the context of the influence of Gauss’s ideas and not the history of Greenwich Observatory or the larger contemporary developments in British science.

75 Wood to Airy, 7 December 1835, RGO 6.675.12.

76 Airy to Wood, 12 January 1836, RGO 55.2.1.

77 Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Minutes of the Board of Visitors, 26 February 1836, RGO 55.1.1.

78 Barrow to Airy, 3 March 1836, RGO 6.675.28; Barrow to Airy, 25 March 1836, RGO 6.675.44.

79 Airy to Gauss, 7 March 1836, RGO 6.675.31.

80 Christie to Airy, 12 March 1836, RGO 6.675.40; Airy to Wood, 21 March 1836, RGO 6.675.42.

81 Papers of the Board of Visitors: Minutes, 4 June 1836, RGO 55.1.1; Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors (hereafter Report of the Astronomer Royal), 1836, p. 2.

82 Airy to Wood, 15 June 1836, RGO 6.675.48.

83 Wood to Airy, 3 August 1836, RGO 6.675.

84 Airy to Baily, 5 August 1836, RGO 6.675.

85 Airy to Herschel, 3 November 1836, RGO 6.368.608.

86 Airy to Wood, 22 November 1836, RGO 6.675.56

87 Spring Rice to Airy, 22 December 1836, RGO 6.675.

88 Barrow to Airy, 22 April 1837, RGO 6.675.67.

89 Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1837, p. 1.

90 George Taylor (Civil Architect to the Admiralty) to Airy, 21 June [1837], RGO 6.675.70; Airy to Taylor, 22 June 1837, RGO 6.675.73.

91 Airy to Taylor, 26 June 1837, RGO 6.675.74; Airy to ‘Mr Miller’, 8 November 1837, RGO 6.675.79.

92 Airy to Wood, 15 November 1837, RGO 6.675.80; Barrow to Airy, 20 December 1837, RGO 6.675.83.

93 Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1838, p. 1.

94 Chapman, ‘Science and the Public Good’ (note 23); Chapman, ‘Private research and public duty’ (note 23).

95 Charles H. Cotter, ‘George Biddell Airy and his Mechanical Correction of the Magnetic Compass’, Annals of Science, 33 (1976), 263–74.

96 Airy to Gauss, 13 November 1838, RGO 6.676.48.

97 Astronomical and Magnetical and Meteorological Observations made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in the year 1839 (London, 1840) (hereafter referred to as the Greenwich Observations,1839), pp. 95–100.

98 Cawood, ‘The Magnetic Crusade’ (note 11), pp. 514 and 506.

99 Airy to Christie, 2 June 1836, RGO 6.675.180.

100 S. Hunter Christie and G. B. Airy, ‘Report upon a Letter addressed by M. le Baron de Humboldt to His Royal Highness the President of the Royal Society, and communicated by His Royal Highness to the Council’, Proc. Roy. Soc., 3 (1830-1837), 418–28.

101 Cawood, ‘The Magnetic Crusade’ (note 11), pp. 502–07; Morrell and Thackray, Gentlemen of Science (note 5), pp. 356–59; Christopher Carter, ‘Magnetic fever’ (note 11), esp. pp. 16–20 and 35–71; Buttmann, The Shadow of the Telescope (note 52), p. 121.

102 Airy to Forbes, 20 February 1837, RGO 6.676.8; Magnetical and Meteorological Observations made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in the years 1840 and 1841 (London, 1843), p. i; Glaisher, ‘The Magnetic and Meteorological Royal Observatory’ (note 1).

103 Gauss to Airy, 24 March 1836, RGO 6.675.45.

104 Airy to Forbes, 20 February 1837, RGO 6.676.8.

105 Airy to Gauss, 7 March 1836, RGO 6.675.31; Gauss to Airy, 24 March 1836, RGO 6.675.45.

106 Greenwich Observations, 1839 (note 97), p. lix.

107 ‘Meteorological Journal 1832 January 1 to 1836 July 31’, RGO 5.243; and ‘METEOROLOGICAL JOURNAL 1836-40’, RGO 6.662.

108 Greenwich Observations,1839 (note 97), pp. 102–05.

109 See, for example, Greenwich Observations, 1839 (note 97), p. li.

110 Macdonald, Kew Observatory (note 43), pp. 31–38; Macdonald, ‘Making Kew Observatory’ (note 43), esp. pp. 419–24.

111 Anon., printed circular issued by Royal Society, 1839, RGO 6.675.224.

112 Airy to Earl of Minto (First Lord of the Admiralty), 10 July 1840, RGO 6.675.89.

113 C. E. Trevelyan (Treasury) to (no recipient, probably O’Ferrall at Admiralty), 11 August 1840, RGO 6.675.95.

114 O’Ferrall to Airy, 12 August 1840, RGO 6.675.

115 Airy to Herschel, 13 August 1840, RGO 6.693.94. Airy’s letter to Wheatstone is: Airy to Wheatstone, 13 August 1840, RGO 6.675.98.

116 Miller, ‘The revival of the physical sciences in Britain’ (note 5), p. 118.

117 Airy to O’Ferrall, 20 August 1840, RGO 6.675.102.

118 H. P. Hollis, ‘Glaisher, James (1809-1903)’, rev. J. Tucker, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2012); Chapman, Allan, ‘Airy’s Greenwich Staff’, The Antiquarian Astronomer, 6 (January 2012), 4–18, p. 12.

119 Airy to O’Ferrall, 9 December 1840, RGO 6.72.122; Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1841, p. 6. Dunkin and Hind went on to become eminent astronomers in their own right. Dunkin ended his career at Greenwich as Chief Assistant to William Christie, Airy’s successor as Astronomer Royal, from 1881 to 1884. (W. G. T., ‘Edwin Dunkin’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 59 (1899), 221–25.) Hind went on to discover ten asteroids (from a private observatory in Regent’s Park, London) and became superintendent of the Nautical Almanac Office. (Anon., ‘John Russell Hind’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 56 (1896), 200–05.)

120 Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1841, p. 6. The words ‘magnetic’ and ‘magnetical’ were used interchangeably in the early Victorian era.

121 Cawood, ‘The Magnetic Crusade’ (note 11), p. 515.

122 Cawood, ‘The Magnetic Crusade’ (note 11), p. 516.

123 Airy to Herschel, 7 April 1845, RGO 6.675.465.

124 ‘Resolutions submitted by G B Airy to the Magnetic Congress at Cambridge on Tuesday 1845 June 24: which were not seconded’, RGO 6.675.510.

125 ‘Synopsis of grants of money applied for at BAAS Cambridge meeting, June 1845’, RGO 6.675.507.

126 Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1843, p. 6.

127 Airy claims in his autobiography that he moved this resolution. See Airy, Autobiography (note 4), pp. 170–71.

128 ‘Synopsis of grants of money applied for at BAAS Cambridge meeting, June 1845’, RGO 6.675.507.

129 Airy to Secretary to the Admiralty, 17 August 1848, RGO 6.675.559.

130 Brooke to Airy, 6 April 1847, RGO 6.675.543.

131 Report of the Astronomer Royal, 1848, pp. 9–10.

132 Airy to Secretary to the Admiralty, 17 August 1848, RGO 6.675.559; Admiralty to Airy, 25 August 1848, RGO 6.675.570. In 1849, the government also awarded £250 to Francis Ronalds of Kew Observatory, who around the same time invented a similar device for automatically recording magnetic observations. See Beverley F. Ronalds, Sir Francis Ronalds: Father of the Electric Telegraph (London: Imperial College Press, 2016), pp. 483–93 and Macdonald, Kew Observatory (note 43), pp. 75–76.

133 Anderson, Predicting the Weather (note 13), pp. 98–99.

134 Glaisher’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, for example, asserts simply that ‘in 1838 Airy put Glaisher in charge of the new magnetical and meteorological department’. Hollis, rev. Tucker, ‘Glaisher, James (1809-1903)’ (note 118).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Sackler Short-Term Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UK.