[ He was buried in the graveyard of the old church of St Margaret's, Lee (since rebuilt), at Lee Terrace, ]Blackheath Blackheath may refer to:
Places England
*Blackheath, London, England
** Blackheath railway station
**Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England
*Blackheath, Surrey, England
** Hundred of Blackh ...
. He was interred in the same vault as the Astronomer Royal John Pond
John Pond FRS (1767 – 7 September 1836) was a renowned English astronomer who became the sixth Astronomer Royal, serving from 1811 to 1835.
Biography
Pond was born in London and, although the year of his birth is known, the records indica ...
; the unmarked grave of the Astronomer Royal Nathaniel Bliss
Nathaniel Bliss (28 November 1700 – 2 September 1764) was an English astronomer of the 18th century, serving as Britain's fourth Astronomer Royal between 1762 and 1764.
Life
Nathaniel Bliss was born in the Cotswolds village of Bisley i ...
is nearby. His original tombstone was transferred by the Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
when the original Lee church was demolished and rebuilt – it can be seen today on the southern wall of the Camera Obscura
A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a aperture, small hole or lens at one side through which an image is 3D projection, projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole.
''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions su ...
at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. His marked grave can be seen at St Margaret's Church, Lee Terrace.
Despite the persistent misconception that Halley received a knighthood
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
, it is not the case. The idea can be tracked back to American astronomical texts such as William Augustus Norton {{infobox person
, name = William A. Norton
, image = William A Norton portrait.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Portrait of Norton at Yale College
, birth_name = William Augustus Norton
, birth_date =
, birth_ ...
's 1839 ''An Elementary Treatise on Astronomy'', possibly due to Halley's royal occupations and connections to Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the great ...
.
Personal life
Halley married Mary Tooke in 1682 and settled in Islington
Islington () is a district in the north of Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the ar ...
. The couple had three children.
Named after Edmond Halley
* Halley's Comet (orbital period (approximately) 75 years)
* Halley (lunar crater)
Halley is a lunar impact crater that is intruding into the southern wall of the walled plain Hipparchus. Its diameter is 35 km. The crater is named after the English astronomer Edmond Halley. On the 1645 map by Michael van Langren, the c ...
* Halley (Martian crater)
* Halley Research Station
Halley Research Station is a research facility in Antarctica on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the disco ...
, Antarctica
* Halley's method
In numerical analysis, Halley's method is a root-finding algorithm used for functions of one real variable with a continuous second derivative. It is named after its inventor Edmond Halley.
The algorithm is second in the class of Householder's m ...
, for the numerical solution of equations
* Halley Street, in Blackburn, Victoria
Blackburn is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse local government area. Blackburn recorded a population of 14,478 at the 2021 census.
The origin o ...
, Australia
* Edmund Halley Road, Oxford Science Park
The Oxford Science Park (OSP) is a science and technology park located on the southern edge of the city of Oxford, England. It was officially opened in 1991 and is owned by Magdalen College, Oxford. The park maintains strong links with the ...
, Oxford, OX4 4DQ UK
* Edmund Halley Drive, Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia and a principal city of the Washington metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Reston's population was 63,226.
Founded in 1964, Reston was influenced by the Garden City movem ...
, United States
* Edmund Halley Way, Greenwich Peninsula
The Greenwich Peninsula is an area of Greenwich in South London, South East London, England. It is bounded on three sides by a loop of the River Thames, Thames, between the Isle of Dogs to the west and Silvertown to the east. To the south is the ...
, London
* Halley's Mount, Saint Helena (680m high)
* Halley Drive, Hackensack, New Jersey, intersects with Comet Way on the campus of Hackensack High School, home of the Comets
* Rue Edmund Halley, Avignon, France
* The Halley Academy
The Halley Academy is a secondary school and sixth form with academy status located on Corelli Road and near the Kidbrooke area of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in southeast London. It originally opened as Kidbrooke School in 1954 as an all-g ...
, a school in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, England
* Halley House School, Hackney London (2015)
* Halley Gardens, Blackheath, London.
Pronunciation and spelling
There are three pronunciations of the surname ''Halley''. These are , , and .
As a personal surname, the most common pronunciation in the 21st century, both in Great Britain and in the United States, is (rhymes with "valley"). This is the personal pronunciation used by most Halleys living in London today.
This is useful guidance but does not, of course, tell us how the name should be pronounced in the context of the astronomer or the comet.
The alternative is much more common in the latter context than it is when used as a modern surname.
Colin Ronan
Colin Alistair Ronan FRAS (4 June 1920, in London – 1 June 1995) was a British author and specialist in the history and philosophy of science.
Education
Colin Alistair Ronan was educated at Abingdon School in Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire f ...
, one of Halley's biographers, preferred . Contemporary accounts spell his name ''Hailey, Hayley, Haley, Haly, Halley, Hawley'' and ''Hawly'', and presumably pronunciations varied similarly.
As for his given name, although the spelling "Edmund" is quite common, "Edmond" is what Halley himself used, according to a 1902 article,[''The Times'' (London) ''Notes and Queries'' No. 254, 8 November 1902 p.36] though a 2007 ''International Comet Quarterly'' article disputes this, commenting that in his published works, he used "Edmund" 22 times and "Edmond" only 3 times, with several other variations used as well, such as the Latinised "Edmundus". Much of the debate stems from the fact that, in Halley's own time, English spelling conventions were not yet standardised, and so he himself used multiple spellings.
In popular media
* Halley is voiced by Cary Elwes
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (; born 26 October 1962) is an English actor and writer. He is known for his leading film roles as Westley in ''The Princess Bride'' (1987), Robin Hood in '' Robin Hood: Men in Tights'' (1993), and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in ...
in the 2014 documentary series '' Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey''.
* A fictional version of Halley appears in ''The Magnus Archives
''The Magnus Archives'' is a horror fiction podcast written by Jonathan Sims, directed by Alexander J. Newall, and distributed by Rusty Quill. Sims narrated the podcast in-character as the main character, Jonathan Sims, the newly appointed Hea ...
'', a horror podcast.
* Actor John Wood was cast as Edmond Halley in the TV series, ''Longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...
'' in 2000.
* Halley is a major figure in David Williamson
David Keith Williamson AO (born 24 February 1942) is an Australian dramatist and playwright. He has also written screenplays and teleplays.
Early life
David Williamson was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 24 February 1942, and was brought ...
's play '' Nearer the Gods'', about Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the great ...
* The pronunciation was used by rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
singer Bill Haley
William John Clifton Haley (; July 6, 1925 – February 9, 1981) was an American rock and roll musician. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and million-sel ...
, who called his backing band
A backup band or backing band is a musical ensemble that typically accompanies a single artist who is the featured performer. The situation may be a live performance or in a recording session, and the group may or may not have its own name, such ...
his "Comets" after the common pronunciation of Halley's Comet in the United States at the time.
See also
* History of geomagnetism
The history of geomagnetism is concerned with the history of the study of Earth's magnetic field. It encompasses the history of navigation using compasses, studies of the prehistoric magnetic field (archeomagnetism and paleomagnetism), and applica ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
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External links
Edmond Halley Biography (SEDS)
* The National Portrait Gallery (London) has several portraits of Halley
Search the collection
* Halley, Edmond
* Halley, Edmond
*
** Halley, Edmund
''A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets'' (1715)
annexed on pages 881 to 905 of volume 2 of ''The Elements of Astronomy'' by David Gregory
* Material on Halley's life table for Breslau on the Life & Work of Statisticians site
* Halley, Edmund
Considerations on the Changes of the Latitudes of Some of the Principal Fixed Stars (1718)
– Reprinted in R. G. Aitken, ''Edmund Halley and Stellar Proper Motions'' (1942)
*
Online catalogue of Halley's working papers (part of the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives held at Cambridge University Library)
* Halley, Edmond (1724
"Some considerations about the cause of the universal deluge, laid before the Royal Society, on the 12th of December 1694"
an
"Some farther thoughts upon the same subject, delivered on the 19th of the same month"
''Philosophical Transactions, Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World. Vol. 33'' p. 118–125. – digital facsimile from Linda Hall Library
The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Halley, Edmond
1656 births
1742 deaths
18th-century British astronomers
Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford
Astronomers Royal
British geophysicists
British climatologists
17th-century English astronomers
British scientific instrument makers
English meteorologists
English physicists
Fellows of the Royal Society
Halley's Comet
Hollow Earth proponents
People educated at St Paul's School, London
People from Shoreditch
Savilian Professors of Geometry
English inventors
Diving equipment inventors
17th-century English mathematicians
18th-century English mathematicians
Royal Observatory, Greenwich