William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse: Astronomy and the Castle in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Abstract

Historians of astronomy are familiar with Lord Rosse (1800-1867), his Leviathan, and his discovery of the spiral structure of nebulae. For many though, Rosse is an example of astronomy on the periphery, of an enthusiastic Irish earl constructing the world's largest telescope in a cloudy corner of Ireland. Besides the observational data it generated, what influence did such an undertaking have on the wider astronomical community? What were Rosse's motivations and how did his work play out again the background of a post-Union Ireland? These questions motivate a recent collection of essays on Rosse, edited by the historian of Irish science Charles Mollan, and their answers go far to situate Rosse in the rich scientific and political culture of the middle third of the nineteenth century.The essays in the collection run the gamut from surveys of Rosse's astronomical work to his involvement in Irish politics. As the first two essays in the collection illustrate, Rosse came from a tradition that emphasized practical education and engineering. The current Earl and Countess of Rosse present the history of the Rosse family and of their ancestral holding, Birr Castle. This is followed by an examination by Irish astronomer Trevor Weekes of Rosse's educational background and the influence it had on his eventual astronomical endeavours. The seeds were planted early, Weekes maintains, by his home education and his father's scientific interests. His marriage to Mary Field (1813-1885) and her inheritance allowed him the financial freedom to pursue his interests on a grand scale. Lady Rosse's own technical prowess is not disregarded; the collection's third essay outlines her life and scientific achievements, primarily in photography.The next essays help place Rosse in the Irish landscape, physically and politically. Margaret Hogan chronicles his career as a Protestant landlord of a primarily Catholic constituency, including his reluctant political service and his local and legislative relief attempts during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852). Andrew Shield portrays Rosse as loyal to his class and to English Union but also emphasizes his tact in navigating delicate situations like the schism that affected his local Catholic parish or his increasingly conservative stance on land questions in the face of Irish unrest. A useful addition to these papers would have been a map of Birr and its environs for readers unfamiliar with the area.Mollan makes perhaps the most interesting claim of the collection in his essay on Rosse as an engineer, suggesting that engineering was Rosse's primary concern and that he was less interested in astronomical observation than in the challenges of constructing very large telescopes. …