Henry Crozier Plummer, 1875-1946

Abstract

Henry Crozier Plummer was born at Oxford on 24 October 1875. He was the eldest son of William Edward Plummer, who was then Senior Assistant at the Oxford University Observatory under the directorship of Pritchard and who was subsequently (1892) appointed Director of the Observatory of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and Reader in Astronomy at the University of Liverpool. Plummer was educated at St Edmund’s School, Oxford, from whence he proceeded to Hertford College where he held a scholarship. He took first classes in Mathematical Moderations and Finals, and a second class in the Final Honours School of Natural Science (Physics). After a year as Assistant Lecturer in Mathematics at Owens College, Manchester, and another year as Assistant Demonstrator in the Clarendon Laboratory, he accepted, in 1901, the position of Second Assistant in the University Observatory under the directorship of H. H. Turner. The salary of this post was not attractive, but Plummer wished to devote his energies to astronomy, a subject to which he had already made contributions in the form of papers published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ; he had been elected a Fellow of that Society in 1899. His career as a professional astronomer lasted until 1921. During that period his published papers (most of which appeared in the Monthly Notices ) covered a wide field of topics and included several well-defined series which represented substantial contributions to natural knowledge. He always approached a problem critically and with careful attention to detail; thoroughness and solidity were the characteristics of his work.