George Bassett | |
Birth Date: | February 14 1827 |
Birth Place: | Lowell, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Death Date: | December 20 1891 |
George Bassett Clark (February 14, 1827 – December 20, 1891) was an American instrument maker and astronomer.
Born in Lowell, Massachusetts and educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, he was the son of Alvan Clark, part of a family of refracting telescope makers in the 19th century. In 1846, George Bassett Clark joined his father and brother at the family's telescope works in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[1] The firm, Alvan Clark & Sons, made many of the record-breaking refracting instruments, including the still-largest refracting telescope at the Yerkes Observatory, gaining "worldwide fame and distribution", wrote one author on astronomy in 1899. Clark was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1878.[2]