William Christie, Astronomer Royal
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RH says..... Merry Christmas Will! I'm not sure what the Wolverhampton connection was, although Wikipedia describes it as "an extremely pleasant part of the more traditionally affluent western side of Wolverhampton". Wightwick is known for both Wightwick Manor, built 1887 and extended 1893, and Wightwick Hall. The former was owned by the Mander family, central to the industrial and business expansion of Wolverhampton. I can't find any obvious link between Christie and Theodore Mander (1853–1900), or his cousin Sir Charles Tertius Mander (1852-1929), who would seem to be his nearest contemporaries.
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The Mander family were certainly keen on matters astronomical. Charles Tertius had a purpose-built observatory set in a tower at the top of his house, the Mount, itself on the hightest part of the sandstone ridge of Tettenhall.
ReplyDeleteIn 1887 he presented the town of Wolverhampton with a time ball, sited on the tallest building in the main square, activated when the Post Office supplied current from Greenwich at 10 a.m. every day, so that his fellow townsmen should know the correct time. Do you know anything about these time balls?
Nicholas Mander
Thanks very much for this. The Royal Observatory was home, of course, to one of the earliest time balls (see http://www.nmm.ac.uk/explore/astronomy-and-time/time-facts/the-greenwich-time-ball for Greenwich and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_ball for some of the others). Later in the century many were set up in city centres or shop windows, taking time either from Greenwich via the Post Office and Electric Telegraph Company. I don't have any specific information about the Wolverhampton time ball, though, and there's nothing in the Observatory's archives.
ReplyDeleteMy learned former colleague Graham Dolan has solved the Wightwick, Wolverhampton question. Christie, presumably with his son, must have been going to see his deceased wife's parents. Sir Alfred Hickman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Alfred_Hickman,_1st_Baronet) lived at Tinegar Hall, Wightwick, and was an MP for Wolverhampton and founder of the Staffordshire Steel Ingot & Iron Company. Violette Mary Hickman had married Christie in 1881 and died in 1888. She had two sons, one dying in infancy. The older, H.A.H. Christie, became a barrister and Captain in the Yeomanry.
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