Saturday March 31, 1894

M^r Criswick having gone away on leave without having drawn cheques for payment of Computers, Workmen &c I saw the Bank Manager, who arranged that cheques drawn by me on the Public a/c at London & County Bank (Greenwich) would be cashed & accordingly drew the necessary cheques.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Friday March 30, 1894

Two representatives from S. Smith & Sons called with reference to the supply of their non-magnetic watches for the Navy.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... Samuel Smith's jewellery and watch-making business was founded in 1851 and quickly became renowned for producing fine precision chronometers. For the Royal Observatory, the testing of chronometers and deck watches for the Navy took up an enormous amount of their time, energies and even on-site space. Christie's archives in Cambridge testify to this - there are at least 24 sets of papers and correspondence devoted to chronometer business.

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The image accompanying this post is a pocket watch from about 1899 that was made by Emil Neilson[?] and supplied by S. Smith & Son. It is watertight but not, as far as I know, non-magnetic. This particular watch happens to have been used by one Robert Falcon Scott on his 1901-05 voyage on the Discovery and is currently on display in the National Maritime Museum's Oceans of Discovery gallery.

Thursday March 29, 1894

Trials of the gas engine which would not work satisfactorily. After examining the gas supply (which was found satisfactory) easing & lubricating the bearings & it was got into good working order by Saturday morning. The accumulator cells were filled on Friday morning & partly charged, though the engine did not then run properly.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... Gas lighting had first been installed at the Observatory way back in 1851, when George Airy was Astronomer Royal, although it had recently (1893) been replaced with electric lighting.

Wednesday March 28, 1894

A man from Crossley’s cleaned the gas engine & restarted it running for a short time.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

Young Frank

RH says..... As we see Frank Dyson, only about 26, taking charge of the Observatory in his first month as Chief Assistant while the Astronomer Royal was away, we can imagine some of the awkwardness that must have existed between him and his older and more experienced, but junior ranking, colleagues. Some of this had been felt by H.H. Turner when he arrived at the age of 21, as shown in the quotation I posted earlier. I found this theme raised again in an obituary of Dyson from 1940: "The appointment of a young man who had hitherto had no great practical experience of astronomical observations to an important post at a great observatory may not appear a natural one, and at times such appointments have given rise to considerable criticism, but it must be admitted that such appointments at Greenwich have generally been justified by the results. It was particularly so in the case of Dyson."

Dyson seems to have quickly adapted himself to the practical work of the Observatory and worked chiefly on the Greenwich contribution to the international Carte du Ciel project, which was founded in 1887 to photograph, measure and catalogue millions of stars. His work ensured that by 1909 the ROG was the only one of the participating institutions to have completed its allotted programme.

Dyson, apparently, "combined charm with common sense" (according to his entry in the ODNB), which one can only assume would have eased his path at Greenwich.

Wednesday March 25, 1894 [sic.]

Began with M^r Thackeray to look into the errors in position of Ecliptic given in the volumes of Greenwich Ob^ns

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant

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RH says..... I think the date on this entry should actually read Wednesday March 28, since the 25th was actually a Sunday. It certainly seems unlikely that Dyson and Thackeray would have chosen to begin the tedious work of correcting old observations and calculations on Easter Sunday. However, since all was no doubt quiet on the 25th I have posted this one today.

Maunder's perception experiments

RH says..... Since Christie is away on his Easter holidays, and since I am working on a lecture on pre-space age observations of Mars, I thought I would briefly return to the theme of E. Walter Maunder's experiments on perception with the boys of Royal Hospital Schools in Greenwich (see my previous entry for background). Since the scan of his 'Experiments as to the Actuality of the "Canals" observed on Mars' available online has very unclear images, I thought I would rescan them and put them up here. The first shows (top) a photograph of a drawing based on an original by Giovanni Schiaparelli - but with the controversial straight canals replaced by "a number of small irregular markings ... inserted at haphazard" and "river-like marks". This drawing was shown to the boys, and the second image shows photographs of six of their drawings, produced from observations at varying distances from the original. Despite the absence of straight lines, most of the boys - especially those sitting in the middle rows - produced canal-like markings that agreed closely with the schematic Key Map shown at the bottom of the first image. Three boys, in addition, included a short line where Schiaparelli did not - "which we have here called from the name of its disocverer, 'Allen's Canal.'"

Thursday March 22, 1894

Computers asked for half day’s holiday, saying they had one last year the afternoon before Good Friday. Found on reference to Journal that this was not to be considered a precedent. They were, however, allowed to leave at 3.30.

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant

RH says..... This I love - the computers, most of whom were teenagers, trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the new arrival, who undoubtedly felt very much like a teacher arriving at a new school to take up his first post (especially as the 'headmaster' was away). It is evidence too that these journals could be important records! However, an early end to the day was probably a wise move on Dyson's part.

Wednesday March 21, 1894

Went to Sandwich this evening for Easter returning Tuesday March 27.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says.... The mystery of the visits to Sandwich seems to be that Christie was a keen yachtsman, and presumably kept his boat moored in the sheltered harbour at Sandwich. The first point is included in the ODNB entry by A.J. Meadows, and Colin A. Ronan, in a book on the ROG, reported that Christie owned a boat (thanks to my colleague Graham Dolan for telling me about this one). Born in Woolwich, where his father (Samuel Hunter Christie) taught mathematics at the Royal Military College, and now running an institution administered by the Admiralty, his interest in boats seems entirely appropriate.

Tuesday March 20, 1894

Discussed plans for warming Physical Obs^y. with M^r Crisp & decided on Grundy’s as the best. M^r Le Brun sent up his keys (two sets) to M^r Criswick.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... There is lots of information about John Grundy, his family and his heating and ventilation business online here. They obviously decided against the Blackman Ventilating Company discussed previously, although the heads of both companies seem to have been leaders in their fields.

Monday March 19, 1894

Saw Major Pilkington & M^r Crisp at Adm^y about new buildings, also Capt. Wharton. M^r Le Brun handed in a letter to Adm^y stating that he was unable to perform his duties on account of ill health. Athenaeum Election. M^r Le Brun did not come to the Observatory after this day.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... Again we see what a 'clubable' person that Astronomer Royal was expected to be: here Christie records his election to the Athenaeum Club in London's Pall Mall. A.J. Meadows in the ODNB entry on Christie writes that, "Though rather reserved by nature", he "was an affable man who enjoyed company".

Friday March 16, 1894

A Post Office Official (M^r Shaw) called & discussed arrangements for a Wall letter-box to be fixed at the Observatory with collections at 12. 3 & 5, and also for 9 & 11pm. if Park keys could be supplied for use of postmen, It was arranged that the Postmaster of SE. District (D.H. Somerville Esq.) would communicate with me on the subject.
Arranged for Dallmeyer Photoheliograph & Hut to be mounted at once on Terrace roof of S. Wing of Physical Observatory.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... In this image, from about 1900, you can just make out the letter-box in the wall to the left hand side. In front of it, under the small protective shade, are the standard lengths available for the public to check their rulers and to the right of the gate is the 24-hour Shepherd Clock dial, displaying GMT to passers-by. The roof of Flamsteed House, Christie's residence, is bristling with meteorological equipment as well as the time ball, which is raised at 12.58 and drops at 1pm every day.

There is a gap in both journals for the next couple of days - and I am on leave from work - so I will meet you again on the 19th!

Wednesday March 14, 1894

Centred crown lens of 28ⁱⁿ O.G. in photographic position, the holes having been drawn to allow of this. The inner flange of crown cell is now very exactly concentric with outer flange of flint cell to which it is bolted. Wrote to Sir H. Grubb on subject of 26in photo-equatorial.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... In order to correct colour distortions, telescope lenses are composites of two different kinds of glass - crown glass and flint glass. Because the corrections for photographic use or visual use are different, and the 28-inch telescope was intended to work both ways, the two glass cells had to be painstakingly adjusted - as Christie's experiments over the last few months demonstrate.

The image accompanying this post was taken with the 28-inch telescope in Greenwich - with the assistance of modern equipment. It shows a clearer and more colourful image than Christie would have managed to produce.

Tuesday March 13, 1894

As Post Office official* called to enquire whether postman could have key of Park for evening deliveries of letters. Referred him to Office of Works. Wrote to Sir H. Grubb

*Mr J.J. Foster

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... Those were the days! Several deliveries of mail each day, and the postman making a special effort to ensure that they could be maintained. Meatime, Christie made use of the Post Office's services by communicating with Sir Howard Grubb in Dublin about the 26-inch telescope to be made for the Royal Observatory and paid for by Sir Henry Thompson.

Monday March 12, 1894

Went to Troughton & Simms in the afternoon & inspected Universal Transit Circle in progress.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

RH says..... The Universal Transit Circle, being manufactured by the instrument makers Troughton & Simms, was Christie's new altazimuth instrument, which he described in an article here. It was to be housed in the Altazimuth Pavilion, designed by William Crisp and still being built at this time. A short history of Troughton & Simms can be see here. They had offices in Fleet Street in central London but, in order to see work in progress, Christie would have gone to their factory on Woolwich Road, Charlton, which borders Greenwich.

Saturday March 10, 1894

Went to Oxford for visitation of Univ^y Obs^y dining with Prof. Turner at New College. Returned to Greenwich at night.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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RH says..... As with the recent meeting about the Radcliffe Observatory, Christie was acting as an inspector of an observatory run by a former colleague who was to inspect his institution in turn: as Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Turner was an ex officio member of the Board of Visitors to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The Oxford University Observatory, as distinct from the older Radcliffe Observatory, had been built in 1874 in the University Parks, some 70 acres of parkland on the west bank of the River Cherwell. Turner was to find his ambitions for this observatory frustrated: the University neglected it while allowing the Radcliffe to be expensively re-equipped.

Friday March 9, 1894

R.A.S. Meeting. Shewed photo’s taken with 28ⁱⁿ telescope corrected for photography. Also photo’s of Sunspot of February -------- and magnetic disturbances.
Went to M^r W.H. Whites R. Institution lecture on the making of a modern fleet.

William Christie, Astronomer Royal

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R.A.S. The Astronomer Royal shewed trial photos taken with 28ⁱⁿ.

Frank Dyson, Chief Assistant

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RH says..... An account of this day's Royal Astronomical Society meeting from The Observatory magazine can be downloaded here. Christie presented the photographs with caution, saying that although they hoped that they had nearly got the adjustment corrected they were still in the experimental stage. As Sir Howard Grubb was in town, having been at Greenwich the day before to discuss the proposed 26-inch telescope, he was present and asked to comment on the lens. Sounding rather defensive, he pointed out that "As this was the only large object-glass I ever had to make without having to make the mounting for it, I was placed under very peculiar circumstances, not being able to try it on a celestial object until it was at Greenwich" but, all things considered, he was pleased with the results. The data about sunspots and magnetic readings was presented by E. Walter Maunder, head of the ROG's Photographic and Spectroscopic Department and one of the RAS's secretaries.

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W.H. White's Royal Institution lecture was reported in The Times the next day. 'The Making of a Modern Fleet' focused on the programme of shipbuilding begun after the passing of the 1889 Naval Defence Act. White reported that all but eight or nine of the 70 ships paid for would be ready for service by the end of the month, the date specified in the Act. It was (according to White and The Times) "an unprecedented feat which no other country in the world could rival".

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