Wednesday May 2, 1894

M^r Plummer left, having completed his obs^ns for personal equation with the portable Transit in the Transit Pavilion.
Meting of Solar Eclipse Com^ee at the R.A.S. at 3 & 4. Royal Society Soiree.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... This event at the Royal Society - one of their regular soirees or conversazione - was reported in the journal Nature on 10 May 1894 (which, unfortunately, you can only see if you or your institution subscribes - which mine does not). This fantastic image illustrating a Royal Society 'gentleman's conversazione' is from the Daily Graphic in 1890. See more here.

Friday April 20, 1894

Savile Com^ee meeting at 5.45

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

M^r Plummer here to determine longitude of Bidston

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant

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RH says..... Christie continues with the social side of the Astronomer Royal's post, at the Savile Club, while Dyson was back working with William Plummer of Liverpool Observatory, as he had at the beginning of the year. Christie's report to the Board of Visitors in June 1894 recorded that when Plummer had been at the ROG from the 1st to the 9th of January, “cloudy weather prevented observations" but that when he "again visited Greenwich from April 20 to May 2" he "secured observations on six nights with the small transit in the Transit Pavilion for comparison with the transit-circle observer".

Monday January 1, 1894

M^r W. E. Plummer came to the Observatory to make observations for Personal Equation in connection with the determination of the longitude of the Liverpool Observatory.

H.H. Turner, Chief Assistant

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Rebekah Higgitt said...
New Year's Day at the Observatory and it's business as usual, with the Chief Assistant hosting the director of a provincial observatory. Finding the exact longitude of Liverpool in order to aid accurate navigation and time determination was the main purposes of Liverpool's Observatory. This work was, therefore, fundamental to the core remit of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which was founded to aid navigation by mapping the stars in order to find a means of calculating longitude at sea.