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

Abstract

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.