Early China Coast Meteorology: The Role of Hong Kong

3 A Director for the New Observatory

3 A Director for the New Observatory In England he would be in the one hundred and fifty second rank, immediately below subaltern officers in the army, and immediately above yeomen, tradesmen, artificers and labourers. Anonymous Colonial Office official, 18831 Introduction Almost all the obstacles, inter-personal and financial, to setting up the new observatory had been overcome by late October 1882 when Price arrived back in Hong Kong, so at that end it was full steam ahead for the construction of the Observatory. The only outstanding item was a request for permission from the War Office to occupy the site on Mt. Elgin. This eventually arrived in November 1882 when the War Office informed the Colonial Office that they would not object to the erection of the Observatory there if no other suitable site was available for the purpose, but that in the event of war it would probably be occupied and entrenched for defence.2 With provisions for the construction made, it remained to find suitable candidates for the positions involved in its operations. The role of the founding director of the new observatory is as much an integral part of the story of its establishment as the role of the political machinations that attended its planning, and the infrastructural developments necessary for its realization. This role, it will turn out, was no less lacking in drama than the events that preceded it, and throws additional light on the methods and mores that characterized colonial governance and its relations with London — for, like Pope Hennessy, the new director was to be an ‘outsider’. MacKeown_03_ch03.indd 55 25/11/2010 9:28 AM 56 Early China Coast Meteorology Staffing the New Observatory The astronomer royal, to whom the job of making recommendations for the positions was assigned had, as we have seen, recommended to the Colonial Office that they should advertise in Nature for a superintendent — the position was referred to by Price variously as superintendent or government astronomer — but this seems not to have been done. Rather, they simply wrote back to the astronomer royal asking him to nominate some suitably qualified ‘gentleman’. Price suggested that the astronomers royal for Ireland and Scotland be also canvassed in the matter.3 Among those who came into consideration was August William Doberck. Doberck was based at a private observatory at Collooney in rural Sligo in the west of Ireland, and may have conveyed his desire to move elsewhere to Robert S. Ball, the then doyen of Irish astronomers at the Dunsink Observatory, near Dublin. Ball, as astronomer royal for Ireland, recommended him to the astronomer royal, William H. M. Christie, as did William Spottiswoode, president of the Royal Society. Doberck ended up second on a short list of five candidates. The favoured one was Colonel A. R. Clarke, fifty-four years old and a fellow of the Royal Society, who, in 1880, had published a famous treatise on geodesy. Palmer, as we have seen, had already strongly canvassed for him as a desirable candidate in the spring of 1882. However Clarke had been forcibly retired from the Ordinance Survey two years earlier because of a refusal to accept a posting to Mauritius, so when the salary on offer is taken into account it is not a surprise that he never really entered the race, to Doberck’s advantage.4 Writing from Collooney on 10 January 1883 to the secretary of state for the colonies, Doberck said how he had heard from the astronomer royal of Lord Derby’s decision to appoint him, and he accepted with gratitude the post of ‘Director of the new Hong Kong Observatory’. This was before the formal letter of appointment was sent out, which was not until the 29th of the month.5 The appointment was later made effective from 2 March 1883. The astronomer royal gave it as his opinion that ‘Dr Doberck is … best fitted for the post. From what I know of his scientific attainments I should not hesitate … in recommending him for the appointment’. His new position was welcomed by a commentary in Nature, where he was referred to as ‘astronomer to the new institution’ — there were government astronomers at Mauritius, Madras and in the Australian colonies — and it noted that the opportunities afforded for independent and original work in Hong Kong were very great.6 As we will see later, this early ambiguity in some quarters as to his exact title, ‘director’ or ‘government astronomer’, was to become a major...