George Biddell Airy and horology

Abstract

Summary As Astronomer Royal from 1835 till 1881, G. B. Airy had a very important influence on nineteenth-century British astronomy. His personal qualities combined with his office to give him a position of great authority within the astronomical and general scientific communities, and his powers of organization and work on instrumentation transformed the Royal Observatory. A feature of Airy's work was an extensive interest in horology—particularly in astronomical regulators, marine chronometers and driving clocks for chronographs and equatorial telescopes. He was also concerned with building important turret clocks, and he established a public time service based at Greenwich. The enormous quantity of surviving material makes a complete review of Airy's career a daunting prospect; but the horology is a microcosm, where we can study on a manageable scale his attitudes to the Observatory, to its relation to society, and to the role of the Astronomer Royal as a public servant.