The Forgotten Star Atlas: John Bevis's Uranographia Britannica

Messier added a note in the margin of Connaissance des temps for 1784: “Seen by Dr Bevis in about 1731 according to his letter to me of 10th June 1771”, Jones Glyn Kenneth , Messier's nebulae and star clusters , 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1991), 53.

Edmundi Halleii Astronomi dum viveret Regii tabulae astronomicae accedunt de usu tabularum praecepta (London, 1749; English translation, 1752).

Johann Bayer , Uranometria (Augsburg, 1603); John Flamsteed , Atlas coelestis (London, 1729).

Ashworth William B. , “John Bevis and his Uranographia (ca. 1750)”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , cxxv (1981), 52–73. Our knowledge of Uranographia Britannica is based almost entirely on Ashworth's heavily annotated work, without which much of the detail in our paper could not have been interpreted. His is still accepted as the standard description, interpretation and critique of the atlas. Owen Gingerich edited with an Introduction a facsimile edition of Uranographia Britannica in 1987 and this was published by Archive Facsimiles Ltd in conjunction with the British Library. This edition, made basically from a British Library copy, also contains the proof pages that differ from the final version, and the text pages from the APS copy. Some other copies, such as that at St John's College, Cambridge, also have proof pages.

Northampton Mercury , 11 April 1748, p. 7. col. 2. “Proposals for publishing Uranographia Britannica. From Mr Thomas Yeoman's in Northampton and the Undertaker's [i.e., Neale's] own house in Leadenhall Street, London.”.

Bates David L. , “Naturae accedere partes: The Northampton Philosophical Society revisited”, Northamptonshire past & present , no. 53 (2000), 19–30.

John Neale was the son of John Neale , a pinmaker of Abington Street, Northampton. He was apprenticed for seven years, from 6 Oct 1730 to 2 May 1738, to Jonath Houlliere , citizen and skinner, of Broad Street, London, watchmaker and member of the Skinners' Company (Apprenticeship & Freedoms, 1723–1764, MS 30719/4, p. 9; Skinners' Company Records, Public Records Office). James Yeoman , son of Thomas Yeoman of Northampton, clockmaker Apprentice to John Neale, citizen and skinner [sic. clockmaker?] of London for seven years, 7 Nov 1752 – 5 Feb 1760, Leadenhall Street ( ibid. , 46).

Wallis R. , “John Bevis, MD, FRS (1695–1771), astronomer loyal”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London , xxxvi (1982), 211–25.

Rigaud S. P. , Miscellaneous works of Bradley (Oxford, 1841), 456.

Clifton G. , Directory of British scientific instrument makers 1550–1851 (London, 1995), 197, states that Neale was a watchmaker and globe-maker in Leadenhall Street and includes among his apprentices, James Yeoman , 1752.

Wallis R. V. Wallis P. J. , Biobibliography of British mathematics and its applications , Part II: 1701–1760 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1986), 308, describe Neale as a clockmaker, globe-maker, and scientific lecturer and list a number of publications including the proposal for Uranographia Britannica. .

Allan Chapman , personal communication.

The names of the constellations in Bevis's star catalogues are all Anglicized.

Plates I and IV.

Ashworth William B. Jr , “A probable Flamsteed observation of the Cassiopeia A supernova”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xi (1980), 1–9, p. 5. One of us (KJK) independently noticed this, and also the presence of Uranus on the Taurus chart.

Neale J. , “Proposals for publishing by Subscription, Uranographia Britannica” (c. 1749), copy in the Hunterian Library, Glasgow.

The gentleman's magazine , October 1750, 477; The London magazine , November 1750, 525.

In 1999 the Manchester Astronomical Society were advised by Encyclopaedia Britannica that the MAS contravened the use of the word ‘Britannica’ in selling its CD-ROM version of the atlas as “Uranographia Britannica”. Their argument was that although Bevis's atlas predated the first Encyclopaedia Britannica, Bevis's work was never published and therefore did not lay historical claim to the use of the title!.

American Philosophical Society (APS copy), Philadelphia: 14 pages of the catalogue, 32 pages of star tables; St Johns College, Cambridge, P2.61.34: 7 pages of the catalogue, 29 pages of star tables.

Atlas Celeste , opp. Tab. I, facsimile edition (ref. 4).

Wesley W. H. , then Assistant Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, first used the term ‘sets’ in 1907 to describe the very few Atlas celeste copies then known. His comment is in hand-written notes that accompany the atlas in the Museum of the History of Science Library, Oxford.

This is the interpretation of Gingerich , op. cit. (ref. 4). Allan Chapman suggests that they might instead be the Muses of geometry and music.

Of the twenty-three atlases known to date, only eight have an index. This suggests that this simple index was printed c. 1750 and not in 1786.

Allan Chapman , personal communication.

Jeurat E. S. in Connaissance des temps for 1785, published in 1782 (Owen Gingerich, “A unique copy of Flamsteed's Historia coelestis (1712)”, in Willmoth Frances (ed.), Flamsteed's stars (Woodbridge, 1997), 189–97, p. 197).

Anonymous , Sammlung astronomischer Tafeln (Berlin, 1776).

These notes on the second page of the St John's atlas suggest that William Woollgar was their author. His reference to Lalande's recognition that Bevis was the author of the atlas is entirely consistent with that on the 1818 title page that he commissioned in the atlas in University Library Cambridge.