The decade of the 1840s was arguably the most important period in the long history of astronomy at Birr Castle in Ireland; it included the building of the famous 6-ft reflector and some of its most influential achievements. It was also a challenging time for Lord Rosse on several fronts and the future of the great telescope as a productive research instrument was far from secure. That a steady programme of work was achieved owed no small debt to T. R. Robinson and his nephew W. H. Rambaut, who became an observing assistant to Lord Rosse and used all the current instruments. Rambaut’s observing notebooks are a valuable and revealing record of the observatory work during the critical transition from the completion of the 6-ft telescope to its routine use. The early work on observing nebulae was often done in collaboration, with more than one observer present, and was animated by the pursuit of resolution and the detection of spiral structures. As the programme of observing settled into a more methodical recording of the forms of the nebulae, Rambaut’s work seemed less relevant to the active astronomers at Birr and his notes might even be modified as they were edited for publication.
ParsonsWilliam, The scientific papers of William Parsons, third Earl of Rosse, 1800–1867 (London, 1926), 11.
2.
ParsonsWilliamOxmantownLord, “An account of experiments on the reflecting telescope”, Philosophical transactions, cxxx (1840), 503–27; Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 80–104.
3.
Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 2), 525. See HoskinMichael, “Rosse, Robinson, and the resolution of the nebulae”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxi (1990), 331–44.
4.
Hoskin, op. cit. (ref. 3), 333–4.
5.
Royal Society Archives PT/24, no. 3, p. 46. By contrast, the subsequent footnote has been entered on the page, below the text.
6.
Ibid, p. 3.
7.
Royal Society Archives RR/1/211.
8.
Royal Society Archives PT/24, no. 3, p. 2v.
9.
The original text is in the hand of a copyist, whereas the alterations and the footnote have been added by Rosse, Royal Society Archives PT/24, no. 3, f. 3. The footnote references are present in an earlier draft preserved at Birr, but are entered separately, Pearson being cited for the proportions of Herschel’s alloy and Smeaton for Herschel’s difficulties with figuring large mirrors, Birr Castle Archives L/3.2; it seems that Rosse reinstated and combined them in response to John Herschel’s criticism. There is an earlier, but poorly preserved, draft, where Pearson’s Astronomy is cited, Birr Castle Archives L/4.2. For Smeaton’s account of Herschel’s telescope, see HoskinMichael, William and Caroline Herschel, pioneers in late 18th-century astronomy (Dordrecht, 2014), 92–5.
10.
Birr Castle Archives, L/2.5.
11.
HerschelJohn Frederick William, “Observations of nebulae and clusters of stars, made at Slough, with a twenty-feet reflector, between the years 1825 and 1833”, Philosophical transactions, cxxiii (1833), 359–505.
12.
Ibid., 305.
13.
ParsonsWilliamRosseLord, “Observations on some of the nebulae”, Philosophical transactions, cxxxiv (1844), 321–4, pp. 322–3; Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 106–7.
14.
DewhirstDavid W.HoskinMichael, “The Rosse spirals”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxii (1991), 257–66, p. 257.
OwenW. B., “Stoney, George Johnstone (1826–1911)”, revised by O’HaraJames G., Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36321, accessed 13 Jan. 2014].
18.
HoskinMichael, “Astronomers at war — South versus Sheepshanks”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xx (1989), 175–212.
19.
Ibid., 197.
20.
Royal Society MS MM.9, 44.
21.
Birr Castle Archives K/5.17.
22.
Armagh Observatory Archives, M112.
23.
Robinson to Rosse, 26October1847, Birr Castle Archives, K/5.66.
24.
James South to William Parsons, Lord Oxmantown, 24October1840, Birr Castle Archives, K/1.1.
25.
James South to William Parsons, Lord Oxmantown, 14November1840, Birr Castle Archives, K/1.2.
26.
Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 17.
27.
Hoskin, op. cit. (ref. 18).
28.
Bundled with Birr Castle Archives K/1.2.
29.
Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 19.
30.
Ibid., 19.
31.
BallW. Valentine (ed.), Reminiscences and letters of Sir Robert Ball (London1915), 69.
32.
GravesRobert P., Life of Sir William Rowan Hamilton, i (Dublin, 1882), 468; on Robinson more generally, see BennettJ. A., Church, state and astronomy in Ireland: 200 years of Armagh Observatory (Armagh, 1990), chapters 4–7.
33.
RobinsonThomas Romney, “On Lord Rosse’s telescope”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, iii (1845–7), 113–33, p. 116; Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 21–2.
34.
Trinity College Dublin MS 7762-72/2227.
35.
Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 29.
36.
ReillyCiarán, John Plunket Joly and the Great Famine in King’s County (Dublin, 2012), 20; HoganMargaret, “The Great Famine: Birr and district” (1998), 5, accessed via http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com.
37.
Reilly, op. cit. (ref. 36), 7.
38.
Ibid., 21.
39.
Ibid., 28.
40.
Birr Castle Archives K/5.67.
41.
The Times, 22October1845, 7.
42.
RobinsonThomas Romney, “An account the present condition of the Earl of Rosse’s great telescope”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, iv (1848), 119–28, p. 119; SteinickeWolfgang, “The M51 mystery: Lord Rosse, Robinson, South and the discovery of spiral structure in 1845”, Journal of astronomical history and heritage, xv (2012), 19–29.
43.
Robinson, op. cit. (ref. 42), 128.
44.
Robinson to Rosse, 26October [1847], Birr Castle Archives, K/5.66.
45.
BennettJ. A., “Parsons, William, third Earl of Rosse (1800–1867)”, Oxford dictionary of national biography (Oxford, 2004) [http://ezproxy.ouls.ox.ac.uk:2117/view/article/21481, accessed 18 Jan. 2014]; it should be acknowledged that information on this was added during the editorial process by Simon Schaffer.
46.
Robinson to Rosse, 26October [1847], Birr Castle Archives, K/5.66.
47.
Not realising Robinson’s mistake led me to suppose there was a short-lived previous assistant, Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 32), 108, but that is incorrect.
48.
RambautW. H.RobertsAlexander (eds), The writings of Irenaeus (Edinburgh, 1868–69).
49.
These are Birr Castle Archives L/1.1 (4January – 19June1818), L/1.2 (July1848 – 22March1849). The pages are not numbered, so the dates given in the main text will stand for references.
50.
BennettJ. A.HoskinM. A., “The Rosse papers and instruments”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xii (1981), 216–29. The surviving regulators at Birr are by James Shearer and by Arnold and Dent, and are likely to be the clocks in Rambaut’s list; there is also a transit instrument by Troughton.
51.
Birr Castle Archives, L/1.1.
52.
RussellJohn A. (ed.), Remains of the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, A.B. … with a brief memoir of his life, 6th edn (London, 1836). On pp. 19–26 Russell discusses at length Wolfe’s famous poem on the burial of Sir John Moore (“Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note …”), long a staple of classroom teaching and, for many of a certain age, still known by heart: “… we heard the distant and random gun / Of the enemy sullenly firing.” I am grateful to Charles Mollan for help with identifying “Archdeacon Russell”.
53.
The Earl of Rosse, “Observations on the nebulae”, Philosophical transactions, cxl (1850), 499–514, p. 511; Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 121.
Omar Nasim discusses this observation and drawing, and their subsequent history, though not with reference specifically to Rambaut, NasimOmar W. “Observation, working images and procedure: The ‘Great Spiral’ in Lord Rosse’s astronomical record books and beyond”, British journal for the history of science, xliii (2010), 353–89, pp. 373–5.
59.
Robinson to Rosse, 26October [1847], Birr Castle Archives, K/5.66.
60.
DewhirstHoskin, op. cit. (ref. 14), 259–60.
61.
The bright star α Lyrae is an optical double, having an 8th-magnitude companion.
62.
Birr Castle Archive K/5.51.
63.
Birr Castle Archives, K/5.66; in the context of the letter, this ‘hesitation’ seems not to be Rambaut’s stammer but his self-doubt or modesty.
64.
Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 32), 113.
65.
Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 32), 116–17.
66.
Bennett, op. cit. (ref. 32), 126–7.
67.
Ball, op. cit. (ref. 31), 65–6.
68.
Although he does not make this clear, Purser may have been the third ‘astronomer’ Ball had in mind, see MoodyT. W.BeckettJ. C., Queen’s, Belfast, 1845–1949: The history of a university (London, 1959), 604.
69.
Ball, op. cit. (ref. 31), 65.
70.
Compare, for example, the entry for h 604 at Rosse, op. cit. (ref. 53), 511 or Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 121, with Birr Castle Archives L/1.1 for 9March1848.
The Earl of Rosse, “On the construction of specula of six-feet aperture; and a selection from the observations of nebulae made with them”, Philosophical transactions, cli (1861), 681–745, p. 704; Parsons, op. cit. (ref. 1), 148.
