Nevil Maskelyne
Nevil Maskelyne (1732–1811), Astronomer Royal
1732 born on 5 October in Kensington Gore, London
Educated at Westminster School and Cambridge
1755 Appointed curate at Chipping Barnet
1757 Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
1758 elected Fellow of the Royal Society
1761 Went to St Helena on behalf of the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus; using a 20 inch Hadley quadrant by Bird and a copy of Mayer's solar and lunar tables, he was able to test the lunar-distance method of measuring longitude.
1764 With John Harrison's son, William, and Charles Green, of the Greenwich Observatory, took part in trials on St Helena of Harrison's chronometer as a means of measuring longitude (the alternative to the lunar-distance method). Maskelyne remained after the others to complete his own longitude observations.
1765 Appointed director of the Greenwich observatory
1765 Assessed the performance of chronometers submitted for trial at Greenwich by John Harrison (in 1765–7), Thomas Mudge (in 1774–93), and John Arnold and Thomas Earnshaw (in 1798–1807).
1767 Editted the first of an annual series of "Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris", used in navigation, astronomy and science.
1774 On behalf of the Royal Society determined the earth's density by measuring the gravitational attraction of the mountain Schiehallion in Perthshire, and by observing stars near the zenith on both the north and south sides of the mountain.
1784 Married Sophia Rose (1752–1821)
1789 Maskelyne tested an Earnshaw chronometer for six weeks and encouraged Earnshaw to continue making them. As a result, Earnshaw received orders to repair clocks at the Greenwich Observatory and was commissioned to make a regulator for the new observatory at Armagh.
c.1807 Featured in the painting of 'Men of Science Living in 1807-8', reproduced as an engraving by George Zobel, and William Walker[1]
1811 Died
1819 His only child, Margaret, married Anthony Mervyn Story (who subsequently took the additional name of Maskelyne); their eldest son, (Mervyn Herbert) Nevil Story-Maskelyne, became a distinguished mineralogist.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Biography of Nevil Maskelyne, ODNB.