The third and final volume of The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, was published in November 2001.
The third and final volume of The Correspondence of John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, was published in November 2001.
Flamsteed, who held the post of Astronomer Royal from 1675 until his death in 1719, became a nominal member of Jesus College in 1670, when he was 24 years old; he had been unable to attend university earlier because of ill health and his father's reservations about his intellectual pursuits.
The collection of his letters, edited by the late Professor Eric Forbes (Edinburgh), Lesley Murdin, and Frances Willmoth (Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge), is described as an essential guide to the exciting developments in scientific thinking and practice during the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
To mark its publication, a special exhibition - 'Your humble servant, John Flamsteed: letters and writings of the first Astronomer Royal' - has been set up in the University's Whipple Museum, part of the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science. On 22 November a group of speakers were invited to the Department to discuss Flamsteed's place in the history of astronomy and explore some of the content of his letters.
A reviewer has praised the series as "setting right 300 years of neglect of perhaps the most unjustly and persistently maligned figure in astronomical history."
Dr Frances Willmoth, the most recent editor of the letters, comments:
"Flamsteed once said that his work was 'like the building of St Paul's'- a monument that rose famously slowly to dominate the London skyline. The comparison still seems appropriate, aptly conveying the ambitious nature of his aims as a practical astronomer and the stature attained by the Royal Observatory under his directorship.
"Flamsteed's letters provide fascinating insights into his sometimes stormy relationships with his contemporaries, and into many aspects of his life and work at Greenwich."
Whipple Museum
The Museum is open Monday to Friday 1.30 to 4.30p.m. It is closed Bank holidays and is not always open during university vacations - visitors are advised to check beforehand.
The Museum is on Free School Lane just off Pembroke Street.
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