William Ellis, F.R.S.

Abstract

FOR the third time in about six months the Royal Meteorological Society has to mourn the loss of a past president. Mr. William Ellis was born at Greenwich on February 20, 1828, and succumbed to heart failure on December 11 at Blackheath, having spent nearly the whole of his long life in the immediate neighbourhood of the Royal Observatory. His father, Henry Ellis, was an assistant there, and he himself began work there as a boy computer in 1841. After several years' experience as an astronomical observer, he left in 1852 to take charge of Durham Observatory, returning in 1853 when a vacancy occurred on the staff at Greenwich. He was attached to the Time Department, and soon afterwards had charge of it, including the galvanic batteries and circuits, but after eighteen years' superintendence of that work, and more than twenty years as a regular astronomical observer on the staff, he was transferred, on Glaisher's retirement, to the Mag-netical and Meteorological Department, of which he was superintendent for nineteen years, until his retirement at the end of 1893, in which year he was elected F.R.S. During his short stay at Durham he communicated results of his observations of minor planets to the Royal Astronomical Society, following them up with further contributions, and was elected a fellow of the society in 1864. Soon after succeeding Glaisher in 1875, he became a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, and was president in 1886 and 1887, also serving as official referee for papers for nearly thirty years.