Thursday March 8, 1894

Sir Howard Grubb discussed with me plans for proposed 26ⁱⁿ photo-equatorial (Sir. H. Thompson’s). He also examined with me the upper pivot of Great Equatorial which was fitted in some parts along line of bearing of friction rollers & concluded that it might be left alone for the present at any rate.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... Howard Grubb had taken over his father Thomas's Dublin-based Grubb Telescope Company (later Grubb, Parsons and Co.) on the latter's death in 1878. He was recognised as a world-class telescope-maker and designed Greenwich's 28-inch telescope and Astrographic Telescope as well as the telescopes donated by Henry Thompson, including the 26-inch that Christie had ordered on 14 February. The Great Equatorial was an older telescope, now in its fourth decade and relegated to the role of finder telescope. However, I think that Christie was here referring to the 28-inch: the Obervatory's new "great equatorial" and mounted, as it is today, in the Great Equatorial Building of the Royal Observatory.

Wednesday March 7, 1894

Meeting of the Radcliffe Managers at 10.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... Christie was one of the managers, or trustees, of the Radcliffe Observatory in Oxford. Up until 1839 the Radcliffe Observer had been the Savilian Professor of Astronomy (the new post of Christie's former Chief Assistant, H.H. Turner) but at this date the positions were split - the professorship being more theoretical and the position of Observer being more practical. In 1894 the Radcliffe Observer was Edward James Stone, also a former Chief Assistant at Greenwich and, from 1870 to 1879, the royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope. Stone, in turn, was on the Board of Visitors to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The world of professional astronomy in the 19th century was definitely a small one!

Maunder on Mars

RH says..... Time to return to Mars, this time focusing on the views of E. Walter Maunder, the head of the Royal Observatory's Photographic and Spectroscopic Department. Maunder seems to have become involved with the debates about the nature of Mars's surface through meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Astronomical Association, which he had founded in 1890. Since 1877, discussions had tried to account for the differences between the maps produced in that year's heliostatic opposition (the best possible viewing conditions for Mars) by Giovanni Schiaparelli and Nathanial Green.


















Green, an amateur astronomer but a professional artist and longtime Mars observer with a powerful telescope, had apparently seen something very different from Schiaparelli, the director of Milan's Brera Observatory but a first-time Mars viewer. Maunder essentially sided with his compatriot and initially agreed that it was most likely that the lines seen by Schiaparelli were the boundaries of differently shaded regions. He became interested in how such optical effects might be produced and, in 1902-03 went to the extent of experimenting on the boys of the Royal Hospital Schools, Greenwich (now the buildings of the National Maritime Museum) to see if images of "canals" could be produced when images without lines were viewed at various distances. His 'Experiments as to the Actuality of the "Canals" observed on Mars' concluded that in most cases,

"the canals of Mars ... are simply the integration by the eye of minute details too small to be separately and distinctly defined. It would not therefore be in the least correct to say that the numerous observers who have drawn canals on Mars during the last twenty-five years have drawn what they did not see. On the contrary they have drawn, and drawn truthfully, that which they saw; yet for all that, the canals which they have drawn have no more objective existence than those which our Greenwich boys imagined they saw on the drawings submitted to them."

Choosing Chief Assistants

RH says.... There is another gap in both Christie's and Dyson's journals at this point, so a good excuse to look at some other sources of information. Given that the switch-over between Turner and Dyson has just taken place, I have been looking into the way that Chief Assistants were appointed and came across some interesting comments made by Turner in - of all places - his obituary of Christie (H.H. Turner, ‘Sir William Henry Mahoney Christie’, The Observatory, March 1922, 77-81).

It had become a tradition that Greenwich's Chief Assistants were chosen from Trinity College, Cambridge, being among the top wranglers (those who came highest in the Mathematical Tripos exam) and probably winners or high competitors in the Smith's Prize (see Cambridge's Department of Mathematics History for more information) and Sheepshanks Exhibition in Astronomy. This meant that they were the best mathematically-trained men that the country could produce, with a profound understanding of theoretical astronomy and Newton's Principia, but they had not necessarily ever handled a telescope.

This manner of selecting Chief Assistants was criticised from two quarters. One objection was that these might not be practical men and, as the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, David Gill, said "They enter into chief positions where they have to superintend men who know much more about practical work than they do, and they have to pick up what they can of a hard and fast hide-bound system – which they are taught to regard as unquestionably superior to all others". Another objection came from those junior colleagues, who believed that internal promotion was a better solution. Turner - an outsider from Cambridge - had this to say, claiming “more than a personal issue was involved” :

"When Airy retired in 1881 ... Christie was appointed to succeed him as Astronomer Royal, thus vacating his position as Chief Assistant, and he was faced with a decision, not only critical at the time but fraught with consequences which have not diminished in importance in the subsequent history of the Royal Observatory. The Staff would naturally have preferred the promotion of one of their own body into the vacant place; and they were encouraged to hope for this solution by the amiable but perhaps incautious temporary expedient adopted by Christie himself. He crowned the long and faithful observatory career of Mr. Edward Dunkin by promoting him to the office of Chief Assistant for his last three years of service, seeing that this breathing space would give him time to look for the traditional young mathematician from Cambridge. At the moment he perhaps did not sufficiently recognize the danger of the precedent, which was naturally utilized by the Staff when the three years were over. But Christie stuck to his plan of appointing a Cambridge mathematician, and as the best means known to him of finding the man he wanted, he offered his services as examiner for the Sheepshanks Exhibition at Cambridge, which resulted in my being first elected Sheepshanks Exhibitioner and ultimately Chief Assistant at Greenwich in 1884.

"It has already been remarked that about this time Astronomy and Mathematics had lost touch – and the names of Sheepshanks Exhibitioners prove a good illustration of this fact. The first ten names in the list are all of distinguished mathematicians (the third, for instance, being that of the late Lord Rayleigh, and the tenth Sir J.J. Thomson), but have not subsequently been associated with Astronomy. Then follow H.H. Turner, F.W. Dyson, G.T. Walker, P.H. Cowell, E.T. Whittaker, &c., &c. But for Christie these names, though they might have been the same, would probably, like their predecessors, have been associated with other departments of Science. He might have let the Chief Assistantship at Greenwich go as the Staff wished."

As a trump card, he added that had it not been for Christie's sticking to this tradition, "Eddington might have been lost to Astronomy". Arthur S. Eddington, famous for his work on the theory of relativity when Plumian Professor of Astronomy in Cambridge, was a Chief Assistant in Greenwich from 1906-1913.

Sunday March 4, 1894

Returned from Sandwich this evening

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says.... Not a great deal happened at the Royal Observatory on a Sunday that was not entirely routine and Christie evidently often went away over the weekend. Sandwich, a Kent port and home of the famous Royal St George's golf course, may have either been the home of a friend of relative, or Christie had a second house there. I've not yet seen anything in the RGO archives that mentions his connection Sandwich, so this is just a guess.

The routine work, that continued even on a Sunday, included the regular uninterrupted series of observations such as meterological readings, the daily photograph of the sun (depending on the weather) to record sunspot activity and, of course, time-determination observations and the maintenance of time-signals. From 1852 to 1893 the latter, sent by telegraph, were controlled by the Shepherd Master Clock, but from May 1893 this was superceded by a clock made by Dent & Co. (no. 2012), one of several made for the 1874 Transit of Venus expedition. It was very similar to the one pictured here, Dent 2016, which was adapted in 1923 to be used as the primary standard for the BBC's 'six-pip' time signal.

Incidentally, while Christie was off playing golf (or whatever he did do in Sandwich) this day saw the 219th anniversary (or 334th anniversary in 2009) of the Royal Warrant that officially appointed John Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal, or Charles II's "astronomical observator". See Greenwich Day-by-day for more Greenwich-related anniversaries like this.

Observations of Mars in 1894

RH says..... 1894 was a significant year in astronomy for observations of Mars. While the Royal Observatory Greenwich, was not initially involved, E. Walter Maunder, who headed Greenwich's Photographic and Spectroscopic Department, was later to join the Martian 'canals' debate sparked by the observations of Percival Lowell. Influenced by the observations of Giovanni Schiaparelli, who had named certain features on Mars 'canali' (meaning a natural water channel, but mistranslated as 'canals'), and the popular writings of Camille Flammarion, Lowell set out to study the solar system from his observatory in Arizona. In May 1894 he said:

Speculation has been singularly fruitful as to what these markings on our next to nearest neighbor in space may mean. Each astronomer holds a different pet theory on the subject, and pooh-poohs those of all the others. Nevertheless, the most self-evident explanation from the markings themselves is probably the true one; namely, that in them we are looking upon the result of the work of some sort of intelligent beings. . . . [T]he amazing blue network on Mars hints that one planet besides our own is actually inhabited now.

He began observing the same month and saw what he hoped, or expected, to see - and created these iconic maps of the Martian surface. See this chapter on Lowell of William Sheehan's The Planet Mars: a History of Observation and Discovery for more, and I will return to Maunder's response in a later post.....

Friday March 2, 1894

M^r Donough left, having fixed dew cap adaptors &c on 28ⁱⁿ telescope

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... This entry makes it evident that Christie's Journal entries could be written in advance or retrospect. Here he is recording work done at the Observatory, even though on this day he was away in Sandwich.

A copy of the letter to the Admiralty that Christie mentioned in yesterday's entry has survived in the Cambridge archives, with a copy of Thompson's letter regarding the donation of £5000 for a new telescope. This letter, dated 25 February 1894, makes interesting reading, as Thompson outlines his reasons for his generosity. The comments about astro-photography and what could be expected from public funding are particularly interesting. Also worth noting is his view that, despite all Christie's tinkering with the lens, the 28-inch telescope was best left simply as a visual telescope.

"As you know I have been desirous for some time past, that you should have a telescope for photographic purposes ... of far higher power than you have hitherto possessed. I had the pleasure of offering you one of my own which I believe you found useful, when I gave up my Observatory at Mount Side three years ago.
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But Greenwich will be wholly unable to maintain the astronomical fame and traditions of the past achieved by our country, unless it has a far finer instrument for photographic work than it possesses. For the means of astronomical discovery ... must henceforth certainly be sought to a very great extent, in the power & projection[?] of this method of drawing the heavens.
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I fear you are not likely to obtain what is really essential from the public purse just now: I venture, therefore, from my strong conviction of the importance of the subject and my deep interest in the advance of Astronomical Science, to offer you at my own charge, the cost of such an instrument as you think will render your equipment in this direction complete and enable you to devote your new and noble 28 inch refractor solely to the purpose to which it is best adapted. After much talk and some enquiry, we have I believe estimated this as amounting to Five thousand pounds, to cover all expenses."

Thursday March 1, 1894

Wrote to Adm^y forwarding letter from Sir H. Thompson (received yesterday) offering £5000 for a large photo-equatorial to be presented to the Obs^y. M^r Dyson entered on his duties (as Chief Assistant) this morning. Reported this to Adm^y.

Went to Sandwich this evening.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Began work as Chief Assistant.The Astronomer Royal went away in the evening till Sunday Evening. March 4.

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant