Thomas William Bush

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Thomas William Bush (born May 19, 1839 in Nottingham , Nottinghamshire , † April 23, 1928 in East Grinstead , East Sussex ) was a British astronomer .

Life

Thomas William Bush was the son of the dyer John Bush and Mary Neep. After his father's death in 1847, his mother married the baker and flour dealer John Marriott on August 6, 1848. Bush, who received only a minor education, did further training for the most part independently. He learned German, Greek, Hebrew and Latin but later focused on astronomy and mathematics after attending lectures at the Nottingham Mechanics Institution. He learned the bakery trade from his stepfather. On August 24, 1863, he married Martha Cecilia Johnston, who was two years his junior and worked as a music teacher.

Bush first appeared at the Working Men's International Exhibition , which took place in July 1870 at the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington , north London . He presented his own design and built 13 " - Newtonian reflector with a weight of 15 Hundredweight (about 760 kg) and a 1,400-fold magnification. Since Bush had no classical mathematical or astronomical training, this was particularly well received by the press. He was particularly honored, as he was awarded a gold medal by Queen Victoria for his reflector . The reflector was also demonstrated to the then Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone and his wife. He wrote a letter about his visit to the astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy and instructed him to send Bush various astronomical instruments, including a spectroscope .

On November 9, 1873, Bush was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and was appointed Secretary of Nottingham General Hospital that same year. Financially secure, Bush sold his bakery and in 1876 moved into a property in Thyra Grove, Mapperley with three bedrooms, a garden and an astronomical observatory , called "The Observatory", which housed his 13 "reflector. In 1889 Bush sold his estate, resigned as Secretary of Nottingham General Hospital and moved to Baron Forester's family home in Willey Park , Shropshire . Although it was stated several times in the literature that he worked there as an astronomer at the in-house observatory, there never was one on the country estate. On March 9, 1900, he resigned from the Royal Astronomical Society for reasons unknown.

In 1909 he moved to Dormansland , Surrey and started working on a new reflector. On December 10, 1909, he was re-admitted to the Royal Astronomical Society. He made the acquaintance of William Sadler Franks , astronomer at the Brockhurst Observatory in East Grinstead , and moved there himself. There he completed his new 24 ″ reflector, which was then used at the Brockhurst Observatory.

On April 23, 1928, at the age of 88, Thomas William Bush died in East Grinstead.

Its 24 ″ reflector was dismantled at Brockhurst Observatory around 1930 and rebuilt at the University of Nottingham in the summer of 1935 . However, it could not be put into operation and was then dismantled and stored again. On May 10, 1941, the reflector was damaged during the air raids by the German Air Force .

literature

  • William Sadler Franks : Thomas William Bush . Obituary. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . Vol. 89, No. 4, 1929, pp. 298 , bibcode : 1929MNRAS..89Q.298. (English).
  • Patrick Fleckney: Thomas William Bush FRAS A remarkable Nottingham figure. In: The Nottinghamshire Historian . Vol. 54, 1995, pp. 4-7 (English).
  • Allan Chapman : The Victorian Amateur Astronomer . Independent Astronomical Research in Britain, 1820-1920. John Wiley / Praxis Publishing, New York / Chichester 1998, p. 200-203 (English).
  • Madeline Cox: Some Nottinghamshire Astronomers . In: The Antiquarian Astronomer . Journal of the Society for the History of Astronomy. Issue 4, January 2008, p. 23–34 , bibcode : 2008AntAs ... 4 ... 23C (English, pp. 30–31).
  • Richard Pearson: Astronomer Thomas William Bush FRAS The Baker of Nottingham. 2014 (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A selection of press articles:
    • The Working Men's International Exhibition . In: The Engineer . Vol. 30, July 15, 1870, pp. 35 (English).
    • Notes . In: Nature . Vol. 2, July 21, 1870, pp. 239-242 (English).
    • The Month: Science and Arts . In: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts . Fourth Series, 1870, No. 348, August 27, 1870, p. 559-560 (English).
    • A large silvered glass reflector . In: The Astronomical Register . Vol. 8, No. 93, September 1870, p. 202 (English).
  2. ^ Richard A. Gaunt, Chris Wrigley: William Ewart Gladstone: A Bicentenary Perspective . In: Journal of Liberal History . Vol. 75, 2012, pp. 11–12 (English, nottingham.ac.uk [PDF]).
personal data
SURNAME Bush, Thomas William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1839
PLACE OF BIRTH Nottingham , Nottinghamshire
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1928
Place of death East Grinstead , East Sussex