British University Observatories, 1772-1939 (review)

Between the great national observatories like Greenwich and Paris and those of the grand amateurs like Lord William Rosse and William Huggins stands a class of observatories that have been the subject of but little systematic research: university observatories. It is the great strength of this volume by Roger Hutchins that six British university observatories—ranging north to south from Glasgow, Durham, and Dunsink to Cambridge, Oxford, and London—not only receive an account of their history up to the beginning of World War II, but also for the first time are treated to a detailed comparison. While a few of these institutions have had their histories written (Patrick Wayman's 1987 bicentennial history of Dunsink comes to mind), never before have they been compared with such rich and nuanced results. As Hutchins points out, despite occasional intramural rivalries and clashes, a synergy is at work in this class of institutions: as a group these observatories command greater attention than any single one, for it was they that jointly trained the post–World War II leadership in British astronomy. And it is they that formed the basis for state-supported research as the great national observatories declined, symbolized by the termination of the venerable Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1998.

Historians of technology will find here a tremendous amount of information on a variety of telescopes, spectroscopes, photographic equipment, and timepieces, among other accoutrements of astronomical research. But instrumentation only sets the stage for this book's analysis of larger and more subtle themes of patronage, leadership, and institutional struggle for survival. The rise of astronomical photography and astrophysics particularly serve as points of comparison for the success or failures of innovation at these observatories. Innovation required facilities, staff, training, reliable instruments, benefactors, and leaders with vision. To have all of these factors present at any one observatory would seem unlikely, yet at some institutions they coalesced, but even then with mixed results. While the work of university observatories was sometimes second-rate and often unappreciated, Hutchins points not only to the teaching and public writing roles of John P. Nichol, Charles Pritchard, Robert S. Ball, H. H. Turner, Arthur S. Eddington, and William Smart, but also to the solid research contributions of Richard Carrington and Ralph Sampson at Durham, Turner's work on the Astrographic Catalogue and H. H. Plaskett's on solar physics at Oxford, and the work of Eddington and Frederick Stratton on stellar astrophysics at Cambridge. These contributions were made despite what Hutchins calls "meridian imprisonment," the routine work of positional astronomy which, while important, could soak up resources to the detriment of more innovative research. By 1914, Hutchins concludes, the universities had replaced the Grand Amateurs in specialized pure research.

As the author of Sky and Ocean Joined: The U.S. Naval Observatory, 1830–2000 (2003), I found myself constantly comparing the class of well-endowed government observatories with Hutchins's class of university observatories. The U.S. Naval Observatory is one of a class that includes Greenwich, Paris, Pulkovo, and Berlin. Differences and similarities are too complex to enumerate here, but by treating British university observatories as a class, Hutchins sets the stage for an endeavor I have long considered enticing and essential but largely ignored, comparative institutional history: how British university observatories compare with European, American, and other university observatories in terms of patronage, instrumentation, and research problems; how university observatories compare with national observatories on the one hand, and the grand amateur observatories on the other; and their rise, fall, death, and interactions. All of these are problems that cry out for attention and that could potentially yield rich results. Hutchins's chapter 5 especially hints at the richness of such comparisons, and such broad questions are the foundation for a grand research program that could feed into an even broader comparative history of scientific institutions.

Hutchins has made ample use of primary and secondary sources, including manuscript and archival resources in the United Kingdom and...