British University Observatories 1772–1932 (review)

British University Observatories 1772–1932 is a masterly, comprehensive, and well-illustrated institutional history. While historians of astronomy have traditionally focused on state and amateur observatories, Roger Hutchins convincingly argues that university observatories were essential in the development of the physical sciences broadly construed: “Establishing astronomy and especially astrophysics as an academic subject could only occur in universities” (167).

Hutchins is not interested in recent work in cultural studies of science and explicitly rejects “studies of scientific knowledge and studies of scientific practices” (8). The book nonetheless sheds light on a context that is much broader than the author intends, touching on the history of astronomy in general, of its instruments, educational curricula, personalities, and research programs.

Hutchins argues that to be successful British university observatories had to concentrate on areas that were not covered by the state-focused Greenwich Royal Observatory. The Royal Observatory centered on improving mapping (longitude) for navigational purposes and on the determination of accurate time. Along with the prompt publication of accurate positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and bright “fundamental” stars, its state-focused research covered global magnetic measurements (important for accurate compass readings) and meteorology (weather). While initially the task of university observatories was to teach students (professors would rarely observe) how to do meridian work, their research program soon expanded to include investigations of Newtonian gravitation, celestial mechanics, and later in the 1820s comets and double-star work, moving the center of astronomy from the solar system to distant stellar systems and extending Newtonian science to those areas. In the 1840s the use of heliometry for the measurement of stellar parallax inaugurated the possibility of measuring the distance of stars beyond the Sun, furthering the research possibilities of extra-meridian work.

In the 1850s the division of labor between the Greenwich Royal Observatory and the university and amateur observatories intensified along with a broadening rift between mathematical astronomers and practical observers. Meridian work was extremely labor-intensive, and influential university astronomers urged their community to divide and conquer. University and private observatories should abstain from the meridian astronomy of focus at the Royal Observatory in order to explore other topics: comets, occultations, sunspots, and nebulae. Scientific publications of the late 1840s (the Monthly Notices) reflected these changes by providing space for new observations, comments, and discoveries—a forum quite distinct from the positional tables published by Greenwich—that favored amateurs as well as universities.

Private and university observatories competed for large telescopes, while state observatories continued to favor meridian transit circles for precise positional measurements. The introduction of two technologies, telegraphy and photography, further changed the face of astronomy as the boundaries between astronomy, physics, and chemistry blurred, reflecting broader changes in the relation between science, industry, academia, and the modern nation-state. Some university observatories started to employ new chronographic methods and became connected to larger telegraphic networks for the distribution of time. Photographic equipment, at first mostly used by amateur astronomers, was adopted by many university observatories, aiding both cataloging work and basic research (such as on measurements of the Moon’s libration). By the 1850s, with the rise of astrophysics, university observatories increasingly installed dark rooms and hired personnel with experience in physics and chemistry. Investigations of the chemical constitution of the universe, particularly of the Sun, would occupy their research for decades to come. The importance of university observatories became firmly established in the context of astrophysics: Hutchins argues, “Only the university sector could respond adequately” (168).

Hutchins convincingly shows that even the history of small university observatories is illustrative of larger disciplinary changes where we can see the incipient roots of practices that would only flourish decades later. From the 1830s to the last decade of the century, some of the smaller university observatories provided the setting for such astronomers as John Pringle Nichol to write popular books rather than research papers, inaugurating a tradition that was continued by many others in the twentieth century. Other small university observatories did what they could. In...