Wednesday February 28, 1894

Inspector Summer called about the above letter, which he did not consider serious. M^r Crosley of the Kentish Mercury called & I gave him information about new instruments & buildings for an article on the Obsy.M^r Turner resigned his post as Chief Assistant handing over his keys to M^r Dyson, his successor.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

M^r Turner resigned his Office of Chief Assistant

H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

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RH says..... Despite having been Oxford's Savilian Professor of Astronomy since the new year, Turner only now formally resigned his post. Likewise, Dyson had been learning the job at Greenwich for time, but only gets his keys to Greenwich Park and the Observatory now. Meanwhile, the police decide they are not concerned about the bomb threat communicated in the letter received on 27 February, and Christie has an opportunity to show off his innovations to the press. It seems that the newspapers were important to the Observatory at this time, when a lot of public money was being spent on new kinds of research at the ROG rather than just the utilitarian work it had traditionally undertaken.

Tuesday February 27, 1894

A policeman delivered a memo. respecting warning letter as to another explosion. Sent this on to Adm^y at once by messenger.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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M^r F.W. Dyson appointed Chief Assistant from March 1. He came back to the Observatory this day.

H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

Monday February 26, 1894

M^r Bond & M^r J. Cook of the Blackman Ventilating Co. called about warming of new Physical Obs^y (by hot air).

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The Blackman Ventilating Company was set up in 1883, in north London, making fans to remove steam from laundries and paper mills and to dry timber, bricks and leather. It was later known as Keith Blackman and still exists, manufacturing ventilation fans for a wide range of uses. The New Physical Observatory made use of various innovative techniques and products. This image, for example, is a postcard that advertises Robinson's Fireproof Cement, used to plaster the building's interior.

J.R. Hind

RH says..... Having mentioned John Russell Hind in the previous post, I came across this photograph of him in my office, looking a little dour. He was an Assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1840 to 1844 and, after a period working at the private observatory of George Bishop, he became Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac Office from 1853 to 1891.

Saturday February 24, 1894

The crown lens of the 28ⁱⁿ telescope was reversed to the photographic position the separation of the lenses having being reduced to 3.71 in.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... Christie was still trialing the reversable photographic-visual lens of the new 28-inch telescope. Meanwhile, the RGO archives record some of the more regular observations being undertaken with other equatorial telescopes at the Observatory. On this day, observations were made of "Pseudo/Euterpe", probably with the Sheepshanks telescope, and some trial observations of Ursa Major are also recorded. The first was presumably the asteroid or minor planet 27 Euterpe, discovered in 1853 by the British astronomer John Russell Hind, who had been an assistant at the ROG from 1840-44.

Thursday February 22, 1894

Reversed crown lens of 28ⁱⁿ telescope (to visual position) and [illegible] took off counter cell to cut away parts of it so as to allow it to be pushed in ½ⁱⁿ which would allow the distance between the lenses in photo posⁿ to be reduced to about 3½ⁱⁿ as compared with visual posⁿ

Col. [illegible] & Cap^t Thompson called & took notes with respect to the late bomb explosion.

Rev Sutton Patterson called to enquire as to the prospects of his son getting an appointment as Assistant at the Obs^y

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... The Observatory's archives do mention an application for employment as an Assistant by a S. Patterson in 1894 but, along with many others, he didn't get the job. Despite relatively modest pay it is evident that the prestige of a post at Greenwich held weight.

Wednesday February 21, 1894

M^r Donough came to fix dew cap & adapters &c at eye end of the 28ⁱⁿ telescope.
Meeting of International Catalogue Com^ee at R.S. saw M^r Awdry & Cap^t Wharton at Adm^y.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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To Oxford at night. Inaugural Lecture on Friday Feb 23 on the Photographic Chart. To Greenwich Sat night.

H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

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RH says.....  As Turner looked to pastures new in Oxford, life at Greenwich continued for Christie, although experimentation with the new 28-inch telescope had to be interspersed with negotations with the ROG's paymasters at the Admiralty and representation on a Royal Society committee. The Carte du Ciel, or photographic chart of the skies, continued to be a particular interest of Turner's. His fascinating 1912 book, The Great Star Map, being a brief general account of the international project known as the astrographic chart, can be found online.

Monday February 19, 1894

Arranged with Simmons for defective parts of the Observatory fence to be made good. Wrote to Admiralty called attention to my letter of Jan. 5 asking for protection to the Obs^y during the times when no Park keepers are available for patrol, especially from 4.15 to 5.30 p.m.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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Visited St James' Theatre with the Astronomer Royal, by invitation.

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H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

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RH says.....

Christie was clearly concerned about the Observatory's security since the explosion on 15 February. If it was true that the park keepers were regularly unavailable at this time in the afternoon, it may suggest that Martial Bourdin had made his plans better than is usually believed.

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The visit to St James's Theatre in Piccadilly was to see the depiction of a large equatorial telescope, based on the ROG's astrographic, in the set of a new play. See the entry for 29 January for more information.

IYA's UK launch today

RH says.....
Today sees the official UK launch of the International Year of Astronomy, here at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. During the evening I will be based in the South Building's Endeavour Room - which is, in fact, the Lassell Dome, surmounting what was once known as the New Physical Observatory. It has changed a bit since the 1890s, but spot the telltale porthole windows....

In the dome of the New Physical Observatory: an observer with his eye to the Great Equatorial telescope, mounted on two of the telescopes donated by Sir Henry Thompson, the 26-inch refractor and 9-inch photoheliograph.

In the dome today: the Endeavour Room of the South Building.

Saturday February 17, 1894

RH says.....
The explosion of 15 February continued to excite the media, and the Observatory's interest is suggested by the fact that the RGO archives contain many newspaper clippings and letters referring to the incident. The catalogue lists the following newspaper reports, and it's interesting to see that at least two suggested that the Observatory was indeed the intended target:

The Globe, 16 February 1894: 'Bomb explosion in Greenwich Park'.
Kentish Mercury, 16 February 1894: 'Fatal explosion in Greenwich Park'.
Daily Graphic, 16 February 1894: 'Explosion in Greenwich Park'.
Daily Telegraph, 16 February 1894: 'Mysterious occurrence in Greenwich Park'.
St James's Gazette, 16 February 1894: 'The Greenwich explosion - the victim identified'.
Pall Mall Gazette, 16 February 1894: 'Anarchism at home and abroad'.
Central News, 16 February 1894: 'French Anarchists in London'.
Evening News, 16 February 1894: 'Bombs and Anarchy'.
The Echo, 16 February 1894: 'Startling explosion at Greenwich - plot to blow up the Observatory'.
Evening News and Post, 16 February 1894: 'Bombs and Anarchy - a French anarchist is blown to pieces in Greenwich Park, extraordinary career'.
The Star, February 1894: 'An Anarchist Accident, Frenchman the victim of his own explosive in Greenwich Park'.
The Morning, 16 February 1894: 'Anarchist attempt to blow up Greenwich Observatory'.
The Standard, 17 February 1894: 'Anarchists in London - the Greenwich explosion'.
Daily Graphic, 17 February 1894: 'The Greenwich explosion - raid on anarchist club'.
Daily Graphic, 17 February 1894: 'The Greenwich explosion - illustrated'.
Larks, vol. 2, 19 February 1894: 'The Ball's Pond Banditti at Greenwich Observatory'.
Kentish Mercury, 23 February 1894: 'The bomb explosion in Greenwich Park - opening of the inquest on Bourdin'


The incident focused attention once again on the Observatory's unique position in the middle of a Royal Park - somewhat isolated yet accessible to any member of the public. Access and management of the park were also in the hands of the Parks authorities rather than the Observatory, which meant that observers had to have keys to the park gates for use after dark and that issues ranging from overgrown trees to stray sheep had to be dealt with by correspondence. Apart from the sheep, many of these issues remain today, meaning that access to after-hours public events, such as Evenings with the Stars, still has to be carefully organised.

Friday 16 February, 1894

RH says.....
The following day, the Times reported the Greenwich Park explosion of the 15 February. The reporter, focusing on the idea of an anarchist conspiracy, does not seem to have thought that the Observatory could have been a premeditated target, believing rather that Bourdin was trying to get rid of explosives before being found by the police. There are arguments against this account, not least the fact that the path Bourdin was on was by no means isolated and that it led only to the Observatory. If you were trying to dispose of a bomb there would be better places to try than this!

EXPLOSION IN GREENWICH PARK.
Last evening an explosion was heard by a keeper of Greenwich Park on the hill close to the Royal Observatory. Proceeding thither he found a respectably-dressed man, in a kneeling posture, terribly mutilated.
***One hand was blown off and the body was open. The injured man was only able to say, "Take me home," and was unable to reply to a question as to where his home was. He was taken to the Seamen's Hospital on an ambulance, and died in less than half an hour.
***A bottle, in many pieces, which had apparently contained an explosive substance, was found near the spot where the explosion took place, and it is conjectured that the deceased man fell and caused its contents to explode.
***The deceased, who was not known in Greenwich, is a young man of about 30, supposed to be a foreigner. The only evidence of identification was a card bearning the name "Bourbon." Several letters, which the police have taken possession of, were found upon him, and it is stated that his hands were covered with a black substance, which cannot be got off.

The Central News says: - The London police have discovered an Anarchist conspiracy. These facts, among others, are beyond dispute - that the inquiries of the detectives, although cautiously made, frightened the plotters, that the gang hurriedly scattered, and that its chief met with his death last evening when endeavouring to carry away to some place the explosives which were to have been used against society either in this country or in France.
[The report goes on to say that the police had been watching a particular house off Tottenham Court Road in London - a district that had "long been notorious as the favourite domicile of the most advanced section of the Socialist party and of the Anarchists, English and foreign" - especially following a bombing of the Cafe Terminus in Paris by one Emile Henry. On 15 February only two men entered...]
***.....One of them, a foreigner, who had all along been considered a leader among the conspirators, made his way to Charing-cross Station, South Eastern Railway, and there, it is now known, took a third-class ticket to Greenwich.
***For the moment, the subsequent movements of this man can only be conjectured, for he is now lying dead in a suburban mortuary. But there is practically no room for doubt that he was fleeing from the police, and that his immediate desire was to rid himself safely of the explosives which he had taken away with him..... it may be assumed that, it now being quite dusk, the man stumbled and fell, with the result that the infernal machine or machines which he was carrying exploded on his own person. It is possible that at the last moment, remembering that the Observatory was a Government building, he decided to expend his explosives against it. But this theory does not fit in with known facts. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as the Chatham and Dover Railway station.....
***The park-keepers who heard it thought something had gone wrong at the Royal Observatory, and rushed thither without delay. ...

Thursday February 15, 1894

Went to Sandwich this afternoon, returning Sunday evening. Soon after I left an explosion of a bomb occurred on the zigzag path leading up to N.W. corner of the Observatory, the man who carried it (a French anarchist) being found mortally injured on the path - see detailed reports in D9.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

A dynamiter anarchist was blown up with his own bomb in Greenwich Park. See special Reports.

H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

RH says.....
A French anarchist, Martial Bourdin, accidentally set of a bomb that he was carrying through Greenwich Park at 4.45pm on 15 February 1894. An account of events by one of my ROG colleagues can be found here and a flavour of the media storm that the event provoked (which provided inspiration for Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent) is given here. The image accompanying this post, and another fantastic image from the illustrated press here, show the public's fascination in the event. There has been much debate over what Bourdin's target actually was but, given that the "zigzag path" beneath the Observatory is not a main route, it would appear that the Observatory was the intended target. For nearly a decade Greenwich's local meridian had been designated the Prime Meridian for the world, and that the international day began at midnight in Greenwich - perhaps, then, what Greenwich stood for was indeed a tempting target for an anarchist.

The decision regarding the Prime Meridian was made at the International Meridian Conference held in Washington in 1884, the proceedings of which are available online. These show that the French delegates were far from happy about the idea of making Greenwich rather than Paris (or at least a 'neutral' position) home of the Prime Meridian.

Wednesday February 14, 1894

Distance between crown & flint lenses of 28ⁱⁿ O.G. reduced by 3/16in from 4 1/4in to 4 1/16in (relatively to visual position) and crown lens shifted upwards by 1/22in. Wrote to Grubb about proposed 26ⁱⁿ Photo-Telescope[.] Presided at Congratulatory dinner to Prof. Turner in evening.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says.....

As Christie reported to the Board of Visitors in the summer, he and his staff spent a long time working on the adjustment of this new telescope's object glass because of its novel design (see here for more information). The OG could be reversed and the separation of the crown and flint lenses adjusted in order to alter the correction for chromatic aberration necessary for either visual or photographic use. The maker, Sir Howard Grubb declared them "the finest pair of discs of their size which have ever been made". Grubb and his Dublin firm were now in business with Greenwich again, as Christie sent off his order for the new 26-inch telescope paid for by Sir Henry Thompson.

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Turner's slow goodbye to Greenwich continued through this month as he worked out his period as Chief Assistant and trained his successor, before leaving finally and formally leaving for his Oxford professorship.

Tuesday February 13, 1894

Sir Henry Thompson came to see the Obs^y with reference to his offer of a new telescope (11.30 to 4p.m.). He definitely offered a sum of £5000 for a Photo-telescope of say 26 inches aperture & 22^ft. 6ⁱⁿ focal length similarly mounted to the Astrographic Equatorial but of double the size, to carry the Merz 12 ¾ in refractor as a visual telescope & also the Thompson 9in photoheliograph and authorized me to enter into negotiations with Sir H. Grubb about it.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says.....

For more information about Thompson and the telescopes that he donated to the ROG, see the notes page here. The sum of money Thompson offered was very considerable, as Christie's slight tone of disbelief ("he definitely offered...") suggests. As a comparison, it cost about £2000 to build each wing of the New Physical Observatory, the Astronomer Royal received a salary of £1000 and the Chief Assistant £500-600. According to the Measuring Worth website, £5000 is the equivalent of either £408,104.17, using the 2007 retail price index or £2,322,817.37, using 2007 average earnings.

Monday February 12, 1894

Letter to Adm^y on reorganisation of Staff sent off.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says.....

It would appear from the journal that Christie spent 3 days writing this letter, although it was not to have any good effect this year, or next. He complained in his reports to the Board of Visitors for 1894 and 1895 that despite his best efforts Government had failed to come to a decision on the matter. He wrote in June 1894 that "it is only through the zealous co-operation of Assistants and Computers, and the excellent spirit with which the whole Staff has worked to meet the emergency, that it has been possible to cope with the exceptionally heavy work of the past year" and in June 1895 he spoke even more strongly, declaring that the "shelving of such a vital question must paralyze the development of the activity of the Observatory in the directions which the progress of astronomy demands". It was only in 1896 that the new scheme was finally sanctioned.

Regular work at Greenwich Observatory

RH says.....
When there is little or nothing recorded in the Astronomer Royal's or Chief Assistant's journals we can assume that the regular work of the Observatory went on as usual. The annual publication of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich - Greenwich Observations - demonstrates how large a task regular observing and calculating work was, especially at a time that they felt themselves under-staffed. Christie boasted that despite expanding work in what were new fields for Greenwich - especially astro-photography, spectroscopy, double-star observation and increasing equatorial observations - they also managed to increase the number of regular transit observations.

Between May 1893 and May 1894 the average number of transits observed each day was 31 or, if Sunday was discounted, 36. However, conditions meant that this load was spread unequally and Christie noted that the "very favourable conditions" during February 1894 meant that on three consecutive days 458 transits and 460 zenith distances were observed. This was hard and repetitious manual labour for the observers, especially if we remember all the additional observations that had to be made in order to calculate the various errors that had to be factored into the equally labourious calculations that each set of data prompted.

Saturday February 10, 1894 and Sunday February 11, 1894

Drafted letter to Admiralty on reorganisation of staff in reply to C114, Saturday evening & Sunday.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says.....

The outcome of Christie's meeting with Richard Awdry at the Admiralty on Wednesday 7th February seems to have been an exchange of official letters, and the expenditure of more of Christie's time on drafting long letters full of carefully-tempered outrage. A list of the staff in 1894 shows that there was a total of about 45 people employed at the Observatory. This was a long way from the century before, when the Astronomer Royal had employed a single assistant, but was yet to reach the figure of 60+ staff that Christie achieved by the end of his tenure.

Friday February 9, 1894

R.A.S Annual Meeting

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says.....

A report of this Annual Meeting from The Observatory can be downloaded here. Turner and Maunder, Chief Assistant and one of the First Assistants at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, were both secretaries. It was announced at this meeting that the Society's Gold Medal was awarded to the American astronomer Sherburn Wesley Burnham, "for his discoveries and observations of Double Stars". Much of the rest of the meeting seems to have been taken up with discussing the best time to hold meetings in the future. A proposal to meet at 4.30 was voted down, suggesting that a majority of Fellows of the RAS were not gentlemen of leisure, but were men of business, naval and army officers and - occasionally - professional astronomers.

Thursday February 8, 1894

Meeting of International Catalogue Com^ee at R.S. Laying of Brooke’s electric main completed. Wrote to Adm^y about M^r Finley’s candidature for Chief Assis^t.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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Rebekah Higgitt says.....

This was the very first meeting of the International Catalogue Committee, a committee of the Royal Society that was formed to discuss the preparation of an international catalogue of scientific literature.

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The Mr Finley mentioned here may in fact be a J. Findlay, mentioned in the catalogue of the RGO archives here, as having applied for the position of Chief Assistant. Christie was, at this time, hoping to persuade the Admiralty to let him appoint a second Chief Assistant at Greenwich, as part of his staff reform scheme. A second Chief Assistant for the ROG only arrived in 1896, in the form of Philip Herbert Cowell (1870–1949), who - as was typical of 19th-century Chief Assistants at Greenwich - was a recent graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Wednesday February 7, 1894

Saw M^r Awdry at Admiralty about new scheme for appointments at R.O.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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Rebekah Higgitt says.....

Christie's ideas about creating a larger and more permanent workforce were proving contentious, since they would be expensive. It required a lot of discussion with the Observatory's paymasters at the Admiralty and Treasury. Part of the problem was that in the 1870s the choice of staff began to be made by Civil Service Examination, which attracted candidates that were not necessarily well-suited to the practical nature of work at the ROG. Looking back at this period, Henry Park Hollis recalled the "internal opposition in addition to the normal opposition to increase of staff and expenditure from the controlling officers of the Admiralty and Treasury" and that, as a result, "Much of [Christie's] time was spent on official interviews and correspondence on these matters" (Hollis's obituary of Christie, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1922).

Winter weather 1894 and 2009

Rebekah Higgitt says.....
Don't worry - Christie will be back tomorrow! In the meantime, since London has recently experienced its largest snowfall in 18 years and some fairly low temperatures, I have had a quick look at the report from the Observatory's Magnetic and Meteorological Department for 1894. 5 January 1894, when Turner reported snow and low temperatures in his Journal, was the coldest day in the year from May 1893-May 1894 and temperatures plunged to 12.8° Fahrenheit (-10.67° Celsius) with the maximum that day only reaching 19° (-7.2° Celsius). This temperature was apparently “lower than any previously recorded since 1841, with two exceptions". I can only imagine how modern London's transport system would react!

This image was published in 1881 and shows some of the meteorological equipment used at the Observatory, including the self-registering equipment that was brought in by Christie's predecessor and former boss, George Airy. Some further information about this aspect of the Observatory's work can be found here.

Lots of pictures of the Royal Observatory in the snow this week can be found on Flickr, including this set.

Sunspots in February 1894

Rebekah Higgitt says.....
Having mentioned Maunder's interest in sunspots in yesterday's post, I checked The Astronomer Royal's Report to the Board of Visitors for 1894. This records that for sunspots, "the characteristic of the year [May 1893-May 1894] has ... been rather the great number of groups visible at the same time than the extent of any one of them". It was noted that "the groups of 1893 November and 1894 February were very large". Magnetic Observations were carried out by a different department, but they noted that, while this year in general saw much less magnetic activity than the year before, "there was a large increase occurring 1894 February, at the time of the great sun spot."

Maunder on the history and work of the ROG

Rebekah Higgitt says.....
A great place to get an idea of how the Royal Observatory in Greenwich operated in the late 19th century is E. Walter Maunder's Royal Observatory, Greenwich: a Glance at its History and Work published by the Religious Tract Society in 1900. It's the source for several of the images that I've used already in the blog. The full text can be found online in several formats at the Internet Archive.

Maunder (1851-1928) was the Observatory's Photographic and Spectroscopic Assistant. He was appointed in 1873 when this was a new post and a new department for the Observatory. He's probably best known for his statistical analysis of the sunspot photographs for which he was responsible. Using old records, including those of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, he highlighted the dearth of sunspot activity in the period between 1645 and 1715. This phenomenon was later named the Maunder minimum. Maunder also worked on spectroscopy, including making observations with Christie (who was Chief Assistant before becoming Astronomer Royal in 1881) to measure the radial velocity of stars.

In addition, Maunder was an active member of the Royal Astronomical Society and a founder of the British Astronomical Association - he also wrote many books and articles aimed at a popular audience. His second wife, Annie Scott Dill Russell (1868–1947), was also an astronomer who he met when she worked at the ROG between 1891 and 1895. This was the only brief period during which women worked at the Observatory in the 19th century (see notes for further details). She retired when they married in 1895, he retired in 1913, although both came back to work during the First World War.

Saturday February 3, 1894

Rebekah Higgitt says.....
There is a brief gap in both the Astronomer Royal's and Chief Assistant's Journals at this point, suggesting that events at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich were of a routine nature. However, the list of equatorial observations among the archives in Cambridge do record that on 3 February 1894 Right Ascension and North Polar Distance observations were taken of the Crab Nebula.

The 1894 Report of the Astronomer Royal to the Board of Visitors gives a bit more information. The observations were made with the Sheepshanks Equatorial (named after its donor, Richard Sheepshanks) and the observations were made "for determination of personality in cometary observations". In other words, they wanted to test the differences in observations when made by different observers, or their Personal Equations. December 1893 had seen observations of Comet Brooks, March-April 1894 was to see Comet Denning, in May-July 1894 Comet Gale was visible, and Encke's Comet arrived at the end of the year.

This image, from the NASA website, is not, of course, quite what the Greenwich observers would have seen through the Sheepshanks Equatorial!

Friday February 2, 1894

Attended meeting of Council R.A.S. Went to Sandwich in evening returning Monday evening.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Rebekah Higgitt says....

After a meeting of the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society, Christie was off for the weekend. I don't know what he was doing in Sandwich (Kent), unless he enjoyed golf. Sandwich is the home of the Royal St George's Golf Club. Opened in 1887, in 1894 this was the first course to host the British Golf Open Championship outside Scotland - and apparently they will be hosting it again in 2011.

Thursday February 1, 1894

Attended meeting of Jubilee Almshouses Trustees at 10.30

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Rebekah Higgitt says.....
Christie's archives at Cambridge suggest that he was involved with a range of charitable work. This seems to have come with the job, as he replaced the previous Astronomer Royal, George Airy, as a Trustee of the Jubilee Almshouses in 1891. The Jubliee Almshouses were built in Greenwich in 1809 (the name celebrates George III's jubilee) and the Jubilee Trust Almshouses still exist.