Thomas Maclear

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Thomas Maclear, 1833
Mary Maclear, around 1830

Sir Thomas Maclear (born March 17, 1794 in Newtownstewart , Ireland , † July 14, 1879 in Cape Town ) was an Irish-born South African astronomer .

Life

Maclear was born on March 17, 1794 in Newtownstewart, County Tyrone, Ireland to the eldest son of Reverend James Maclear and Mary Magrath. In 1808 he was sent to England to pursue a medical career. After he had passed his exams, he was admitted to the English Royal College of Surgeons in 1815 . He subsequently worked as a house surgeon at Bedford Hospital .

In 1823 Maclear partnered with his uncle in Biggleswade , Bedfordshire . Two years later he married Mary Pearse, daughter of Theed Pearse, Justice of the Peace of Bedford County.

Maclear had a passionate interest in astronomy, which he practiced himself as a hobby. So he began a long membership in the Royal Astronomical Society , to whose Fellow he was finally appointed. When the post of royal astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope became vacant in 1833 , Maclear was entrusted with this office. He arrived there in 1834 on board the Tam O'Shanter with his wife and five daughters to take up his position. There he worked with John Herschel on the investigation of the southern sky until 1838 . Maclear made important astronomical observations for decades afterwards. The Maclears and the Herschels were close friends. The wives were welded together by the unusual employment of their husbands and the upbringing of their large families. Mary Maclear, like Margaret Herschel, was described as handsome and intelligent, but suffered from extreme hearing loss.

A plaque to the Abbe de la Caille and Thomas Maclear in Aurora in South Africa. The inscription is loosely translated: "From 1838 the Maclear lighthouse stood here near the northern end point of the Arc of Meridian built by the Abbe de la Caille, the founder of geodetic surveying in South Africa."

In 1750, Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille carried out a triangulation measurement north of Cape Town to determine the shape of the earth, and found that the curvature of the earth in the southern latitudes is less than that in the corresponding northern latitudes. Sir George Everest visited the cape in 1820 and toured the site of Lacailles Dimensioning. Through his experiences in the Himalayas , he believed that the vast mountain ranges at Cape Lacailles could have falsified calculations.

Between 1841 and 1848 Maclear dealt with a geodetic study, the purpose of which was to recalculate the dimensions and shape of the earth. He became a close friend with David Livingstone , with whom he shared a general interest in exploring Africa. Maclear also made other useful contributions to science by collecting data on meteorology, magnetism and tides, for example.

His wife died in 1861. Although Maclear was granted a pension two years later, he did not leave the observatory until 1870 to retire. He retired at Gray Villa, Mowbray. In 1876 he lost his sight. He died three years later in Cape Town. Thomas Maclear was buried next to his wife Mary on the grounds of the Royal Observatory.

In 1863 Maclear was elected a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences in Paris.

honors and awards

See also

literature

  • Agnes Mary Clerke: Maclear, Thomas. In: Sidney Lee: Dictionary of National Biography. 35th edition. Smith, Elder & Co., London 1893.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . Springer, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-30400-7, (accessed October 3, 2014).
  2. ^ Clerke, 1893.
  3. ^ Clerke, 1893.
  4. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter M. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 17, 2020 (French).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Maclear, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1794
PLACE OF BIRTH Newtownstewart , Ireland
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1879
Place of death Cape Town