The Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1596 / 7, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to eight and in addition the college now has visiting professors.
The Professor of Astronomy is always appointed by the City of London Corporation.
(Years given as, say, 1596 / 7 refer to Old Style and New Style dates.)
1 | Edward Brerewood | March 1596 / 97 |
2 | Thomas Williams | 11 November 1613 |
3 | Edmund Gunter | 6 March 1619 / 20 |
4 | Henry Gellibrand | 2 January 1626 / 27 |
5 | Samuel Foster | 2 March 1636 / 37 |
6 | Mungo Murray | 25 November 1637 |
7 | Samuel Foster | 26 May 1641 |
8 | Lawrence Rooke | 23 July 1652 |
9 | Sir Christopher Wren | 7 August 1657 |
10 | Walter Pope | 8 March 1660 / 61 |
11 | Daniel Man | 21 September 1687 |
12 | Alexander Torriano | 31 July 1691 |
13 | John Machin | 16 May 1713 |
14 | William Romaine | 25 June 1751 |
15 | William Cockayne | 21 April 1752 |
16 | Peter Sandiford | 16 July 1795 |
17 | Joseph Pullen | 3 December 1833 |
18 | Edmund Ledger | 27 July 1875 |
19 | Samuel Arthur Saunder | 2 December 1908 |
20 | Arthur Robert Hinks | 17 April 1913 |
(1939–45 Lectures in abeyance) | ||
21 | William Herbert Steavenson | 29 May 1946 |
22 | Sir John Carroll | 1964 |
23 | Sir Martin Ryle | 1968 |
24 | Roger Tayler | 1969 |
25 | Sir Martin Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow FRS |
1975 |
26 | David W Dewhirst | 1976-80 |
27 | Michael Rowan-Robinson | 1981 |
28 | Andrew Fabian | 1982 |
29 | Raymond Hide | 1984 |
30 | George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham OM FRS |
1 September 1990 |
31 | Heather Couper FRAS | 1 September 1993 |
32 | Colin Pillinger FRS | 1 September 1996 |
33 | Frank Close OBE | 1 September 2000 |
34 | John D Barrow FRS | 1 September 2003 |
35 | Ian Morison FRAS | 1 August 2007 |
36 | Carolin Crawford | 1 August 2011 |
Famous quotes containing the words professor and/or astronomy:
“I am opposed to writing about the private lives of living authors and psychoanalyzing them while they are alive. Criticism is getting all mixed up with a combination of the Junior F.B.I.- men, discards from Freud and Jung and a sort of Columnist peep- hole and missing laundry list school.... Every young English professor sees gold in them dirty sheets now. Imagine what they can do with the soiled sheets of four legal beds by the same writer and you can see why their tongues are slavering.”
—Ernest Hemingway (18991961)
“It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods and spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference to death.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)