Sir James South FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

PRAS Prakazrel Samuel Michel (; born October 19, 1972) is a Haitian-American rapper, producer, songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the hip hop group Fugees, alongside Wyclef Jean and Lauryn Hill. After the Fugees, he earned two ...

FLS LLD (October 1785 – 19 October 1867) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

. He was a joint founder of the Astronomical Society of London, and it was under his name, as President of the Society in 1831, that a petition was successfully submitted to obtain a Royal Charter, whereupon it became the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

Life

He was born in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

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 ...

in October 1785, the son of James South, a pharmaceutical chemist.

John Flint South John Flint South (1797–1882) was an English surgeon. Life The eldest son by his second wife of James South, a druggist in Southwark, he was born on 5 July 1797; Sir James South, the astronomer, was his half-brother. He was put to school in ...

was his younger half-brother. He originally trained as a chemist, then as a surgeon, but his interests in astronomy overtook all things. In 1821 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and in 1822 a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

his proposer being

Edward Troughton Edward Troughton FRS FRSE FAS (October 1753 – 12 June 1835) was a British instrument maker who was notable for making telescopes and other astronomical instruments. Life Troughton was born at Corney, Cumberland, the youngest of six child ...

. He won the

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society, for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science". It alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the biological sciences. Given every year, the medal is t ...

in 1826 and the

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

in that same year. He was knighted by

King William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded hi ...

in 1831. Starting around 1826, James South made plans for a new, larger telescope, an equatorially mounted achromatic

refractor A refracting telescope (also called a refractor) is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image (also referred to a dioptric telescope). The refracting telescope design was originally used in spyglasses and a ...

(a telescope with a lens) in a new observatory. He bought a 12-inch (actually about 11.8) aperture lens from

Robert-Aglaé Cauchoix Robert-Aglaé Cauchoix (24 April 1776 – 5 February 1845) was a French optician and instrument maker, whose lenses played a part in the race of the great refractor telescopes in the first half of the 19th century. Instruments At first Cauchoi ...

in Paris for about 1000 pounds, large enough to be the biggest achromatic object lens in the world at the time. The telescope for the lens was completed, but dismantled around 1838. The next largest refractor, was at the

Markree Observatory Markree Observatory was an astronomical observatory in County Sligo, Ireland. The asteroid 9 Metis was discovered from this observatory in 1848 by Cooper's assistant Andrew Graham using a comet seeker telescope. (Signed 29 April 1848; the discove ...

, which successfully completed a 13.3-inch refractor (also a Cauchoix of Paris lens) in the 1830s on a

Thomas Grubb Thomas Grubb (4 August 1800 – 19 September 1878) was an Irish optician and founder of the Grubb Telescope Company. He was born near Portlaw, County Waterford, Ireland, the son of William Grubb Junior, a prosperous Quaker farmer and his sec ...

mount. The problem for James South's telescope was the equatorial mount. South was involved in a notorious lawsuit brought against him by the instrument maker

over this equatorial-mount telescope which the latter had constructed for him, and which South considered defective. Troughton sued him for payment and won. South promptly demolished the telescope mount; the 12-inch lens, which had been purchased separately, was preserved and presented to the (Dublin)

Dunsink Observatory The Dunsink Observatory is an astronomical observatory established in 1785 in the townland of Dunsink in the outskirts of the city of Dublin, Ireland.Alexander Thom''Irish Almanac and Official Directory''7th ed., 1850 p. 258. Retrieved: 2011-02-2 ...

in 1862.Title: The Observatory of the Late Sir James South
Journal: Astronomical register, vol. 8, pp. 196–199 The Observatory mounted it on a Grubb equatorial, where it survives to the present day. (See also

Great refractor Great refractor refers to a large telescope with a lens, usually the largest refractor at an observatory with an equatorial mount. The preeminence and success of this style in observational astronomy defines an era in modern telescopy in the 19t ...

s) James was the second owner of the

Groombridge Transit Circle Groombridge Transit Circle was a meridian transit circle made by Edward Troughton for the English astronomer Stephen Groombridge in 1806, which Groombridge used to compile data for the star catalogue, ''Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars''. The advant ...

of 1806 (after

Stephen Groombridge Stephen Groombridge FRS (7 January 1755 – 30 March 1832) was a British merchant and astronomer. Life He was born at Goudhurst in Kent on 7 January 1755. He succeeded when about 21 to the business in West Smithfield of a linen draper named ...

). He died at the observatory on

Campden Hill Campden Hill is a hill in Kensington, West London, bounded by Holland Park Avenue on the north, Kensington High Street on the south, Kensington Palace Gardens on the east and Abbotsbury Road on the west. The name derives from the former ''Campde ...

on 19 October 1867 and was buried on the west side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Family

In 1816 he married Charlotte Ellis (d.1851). She was an heiress and his new-found wealth enabled him to give up surgery and concentrate on astronomy.ODNB James South

Works

South and

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...

jointly produced a catalogue of 380

double star In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes. This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a bi ...

s in 1824, reobserving many of the double stars that had been discovered by

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel (; german: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-born British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline H ...

. South then continued and observed another 458 double stars over the following year.

Recognition

Craters on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

and the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

are named in his honour.

References

London Metropolitan Archives
Reference Number: P92/SAV/3009
National Portrait Gallery portrait
* Wikisource copy of a notice from 1823 concerning the star catalogue, published in Astronomische Nachrichten
MNRAS 28 (1868) 69

External links