Prof. R. A. Sampson, F.R.S

Abstract

THE retirement of Prof. R. A. Sampson from the position of Astronomer Royal for Scotland has been recently announced, and will shortly take effect. He has held this office, which is associated with the professorship of astronomy in the University of Edinburgh, since 1910 when he succeeded Sir Frank Dyson on the appointment of the latter as Astronomer Royal at Greenwich. Prof. Sampson's career has been long, varied and distinguished. His earlier years were spent in posts mainly mathematical, and it was only comparatively late in life that he was able to devote all his time, during the twenty-seven years at Edinburgh, to the pursuit of astronomy. But much of his astronomical work had already been done in the earlier period. Happily, this is not the occasion—may it be long distant—when it is necessary to give biographical details or to assess the value of scientific achievements. But it is interesting to recall that Prof. Sampson was the first product of the Isaac Newton studentships (1891–3), then lately founded by Mr. F. McClean, for he gained this prize a year after his election to a fellowship at St. John's College, Cambridge, where his mathematical career had been eminently successful. Between 1893 and 1910 he held a mathematical professorship first at the Durham College of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and after 1896 at the University of Durham, where (after 1908) he was also professor of astronomy.