Article ID: CBB327893493

David Gill FRS (1843–1914): The Making of a Royal Astronomer (2018)

unapi

David Gill was an outstanding astronomer over several decades at the end of the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century. He was famous for his observational accuracy, for his painstaking attention to detail, and for his hands-on knowledge of the fine points of astronomical instrumentation. Astronomy, though, was a second professional career for David Gill. This account maps out the surprising and unusual path of David Gill’s life before he became Her Majesty’s Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope. It covers aspects of his education, his horological career, his employment by Lord Lindsay to oversee the Dunecht observatory, his personal expedition to Ascension Island and his appointment as Her Majesty’s Astronomer at the age of 34. The account includes local detail and images not found in the main biography of David Gill. It ends with some detail of Gill’s continuing interest in clocks after his appointment.

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Authors & Contributors
Glass, I. S.
Orchiston, Wayne
Koroński, Jan
Bujakiewicz-Korońska, Renata
Guski-Leinwand, Susanne
Lemke, Dietrich
Concepts
Astronomy
Biographies
Psychology
Telescopes
Historians of science, modern
Botany
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
18th century
Places
Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)
Germany
South Africa
Poland
France
Finland
Institutions
Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope
Observatoire de Paris
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