Friday December 14, 1894

R.A.S. meeting. Eclipse Com^ee 2.30, Photo. Com^ee 3.15, Council 4-6.15.
M^r Crisp came down to arrange about roof & dome of Altaz. building.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... The RAS council meeting included a contribution by Frederick Howlett, a rector and astronomer dedicated to the study of sunspots. This caught my eye as I have recently been looking at the history of solar observation for a display called 'Solar Story' opening at the ROG in January. This will coincide with a new planetarium show, Secrets of the Sun, and the ROG's contribution to a citizen science project working with the data of the STEREO mission. It is a good opportunity to highlight the work of Maunder and the observatory's magnetic department.

Friday November 30, 1894

Col. Wheatley (Bailiff of Parks) called with M^r Jordan (Super^t Greenwich Park) with reference to improvement of west boundary of Obs^y from point of view of Park. He proposed to access[?] portion of garden between existing fence & west wall of Lawn & west side of garden house. I told him that questions of modification of boundary should be considered as a whole & explained to him the modification I should propose round Physical Obs^y and on east side. It was understood that he would raise the question of the alteration of west fence.

Sir H. Thompson dined with me at R.S. anniversary dinner.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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D^r Dyson made an observation of the Sun’s Transit across two plumb lines to determine the Meridian line of the New Altazimuth. The result agreed closely with the line obtained by M^r Nash by Magnetic Observations. The two plumb lines were 37^ft apart. The Centre of the Sun & the second limb crossed the line 5^s too soon: giving an error of 2^s. M^r Nash’s line was compared with Col: Tupman’s & agreed well.

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant

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RH says..... Christie's plans for the Physical Observatory had always required that a small parcel of land from the Royal Park be brought within the Royal Observatory's boundary. His tagging of this issue onto the question of improving the western boundary around Flamsteed House is decidedly sneaky.

30 November, St Andrew's Day, is the anniversary of the Royal Society's foundation in 1660: 2010 (or technically 1 December 2009 to 30 November 2010) will be a celebration of the Society's 350th anniversary.

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Lieutenant Colonel Tupman, mentioned by Dyson, had had a connection with the Royal Observatory in 1874, having organised one of the transit of Venus observing expeditions, but archives from the Observatory in Cambridge show that he continued observing at Hillfoot Observatory in Harrow.

Wednesday October 31, 1894

Meeting of Index Catalogue Com^ee (Astronomy). Prof. G. H. Darwin & I attended & we drew up a brief Report.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Wednesday July 25, 1894

M^r A.N. Wollaston (Assis^t Sec^y India Office) called to enquire about the Photoheliograph for India. I mentioned to him the difficulties about arranging for meetings of Indian Obs^y Com^ee & proposed that there should be a fixed date for the meeting & that a clerk from India Office should act as Sec^y. Letters were written to him subsequently to this effect.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... Christie arranged for identical photoheliograph telescopes to be used in India and Mauritius to fill in gaps of the Greenwich series of sunspot photographs caused by cloudy weather. The Indian Observatory Committee of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society had been set up in 1885 to monitor the efficiency of the Bombay and Madras observatories. In 1897 it was merged with the Observatories Committee.

Tuesday July 3, 1894

Ladies’ dinner of Drapers’ Company. Royal Academy soirée.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Capt. Close R.N. discussed plans for a timeball at Chatham. Anniversary dinner of R.S. Club.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The Royal Observatory's time ball was installed in 1833 in order to give a visual time signal to ships on the Thames. This allowed them to check the chronometers they used - along with the astronomical lunar distance method - to find their longitude at see. The mechanism still works: the ball rising half-way up the pole at 12.55, to the top at 12.58 and dropping at 1pm. With the arrival of telegraphic time signals from Greenwich in the mid 19th century, other time balls were set up at various ports, including Deal, Southampton, Chatham and Falmouth. The archives in Cambridge show that these prompted much correspondence for Christie.

Wednesday June 27, 1894

Attending meeting of Catalogue Sub Com^ee for Astronomy at R.S. 4 p.m.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The International Catalogue of Scientific Literature was issued by the Royal Society in annual volumes from 1902 to 1916 - several of these volumes can be seen at Internet Archive. Three conferences held in London in 1896, 1898 and 1900 had established it as an international endeavour, with Bureau dedicated to its production all over the world. That in the US, for example, was based at the Smithsonian.

Wednesday June 13, 1894

Meeting of Solar Physics Com^ee at 2.30pm. Trinity House Dinner, Duke of York in the chair.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The Duke of York, pictured to the left, was the future king of England, George V.

Friday June 8, 1894

R.A.S. Council meeting. Presided at R.S. Club dinner, Sir H. Thompson & Sir H. Trueman Wood guests.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Thursday June 7, 1894

Went to meeting of R.S. Election of Fellows.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... You can see copies of all the Royal Society election certificates - with the citation and signatures of all the proposers - via the RS archive catalogue. Those elected on this day were William Bateson, George Albert Boulenger, John Rose Bradford, Hugh Longbourne Callendar, William Watson Cheyne, Robert Edmund Froude, M.J.M. Hill, John Viriamu Jones, Augustus Edward Hough Love, Richard Lydekker, Francis Cranmer Penrose, Dunkinfield Henry Scott, Frederick John Smith, Joseph Wilson Swan (inventor of the incandescent light bulb) and Victor Huber Veley. This image shows the certificate for the architect, archaeologist and astronomer Francis Penrose, as Christie was one of the proposers, "from personal knowledge".

Wednesday May 23, 1894

Writing Report to B of V. & preparing for Visⁿ, Meeting of Gov^t Grant Com^ee at R.S. at 4.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Thursday May 10, 1894

M^r Hughes from Director of Stores Depart^t made out his list of Office furniture required for new building South Wing. M^r Simms Jun^r commenced mounting Simms & Cooke Equatorials & Water Telescope in South Wing Basement. Mr McGilicuddy[?] from Doching[?] & Son called about a mistake in no of copies of Astr. Results 1891, the 180 separate copies not having been struck off. I complained to him of the slow rate of printing. Settled [illegible] details of mounting of Spectroscope on 28 inch telescope. Went to meeting of R.S. (Papers on Eclipse of 1893 April 16) & to dinner of R.S. Club.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... E.Walter Maunder had this to say about the Water Telescope:

"An ingenious telescope was set up by Sir George Airy in order to ascertain if the speed of light were different when passing through water than when passing through air. Or, in other words, if the aberration of light would give the same value as at present if we observed through water. The water telescope, as it was called, is kept on the ground floor of the central octagon of the new observatory. The observations obtained with it were hardly quite satisfactory, but gave on the whole a negative result."

The Royal Society Club was a dining club, for the inner circles of the Royal Society. See Archibald Geikie's 1917 Annals of the Royal Society Club; the record of a London dining-club in the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries for background.

Wednesday May 9, 1894

Meeting of Antarctic Com^ee of R.S. at 11.30. Saw M^r Jenkins at Adm^y about vacancies in staff.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The Antarctic Committee was actually a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, founded after the RGS president, Sir Clements Markam, began to promote an Antarctic voyage. The RS seems to have been a bit ambivalent and it was to take Markam several more years before funding and enthusiasm reached the necessary levels and the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04 could go ahead.

Thursday May 3, 1894

Arranged with Desforges (from Troughton & Simms) mounting of Half prism spectroscope on Great Equatorial (28ⁱⁿ). Meeting of Board A of Gov^t Grant Com^ee at R.S. at 3.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal
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RH says..... The Government Grant Committee of the Royal Society, as the name suggests, met to decide how to distribute the sum that the government voted annually for the direct support of scientific research. This scheme dated back to 1850, although only became an annual payment in 1856. Subcommittees were formed for the various branches of science - astronomy and mathematics, as at the British Association for the Advancement of Science, was section A.

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.

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.

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.