William Rutter Dawes Explained

William Rutter Dawes
Birth Date:19 March 1799

William Rutter Dawes (19 March 1799 – 15 February 1868) was an English astronomer.

Biography

Dawes was born at Christ's Hospital[1] then in the City of London (it moved to Horsham, West Sussex in 1902),[2] the son of William Dawes, also an astronomer, and Judith Rutter.[3] He qualified as a doctor in 1825. On 29 October 1828 he was ordained pastor at an Independent chapel in Burscough Street, Ormskirk, Lancashire,[4] formerly part of a silk factory. A new chapel, in Chapel Street, was opened in 1834. Dawes resigned as pastor in December 1837 due to ill health. When, in 1843, the chapel got into financial difficulties due to the debt owing after its construction, Dawes came to their aid.

Astronomy

Dawes made extensive measurements of double stars as well as observations of planets. He was a friend of William Lassell. He was nicknamed "eagle eyed".[5] He set up his private observatory at his home, Hopefield House, built 1856-7[6] in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire. One of his telescopes, an eight-inch (200mm) aperture refractor by Cooke, survives at the Cambridge Observatory, now part of the Institute of Astronomy where it is known as the Thorrowgood Telescope.[7]

He made extensive drawings of Mars during its 1864 opposition. In 1867, Richard Anthony Proctor made a map of Mars based on these drawings. Proctor named two features after Dawes.[8]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1830 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, for his astronomical work.[9] Proposers for his Royal Society Fellowship included G B Airy and J F W Herschel.

Awards

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1855.[10]

Legacy

Dawes[11] craters on the Moon and Dawes[12] crater on Mars are named after him, as is a gap within Saturn's C Ring,[13] formerly labelled 1.495 RS.[14]

An optical phenomenon, the Dawes limit, is named after him.

Family

Dawes married twice. His first wife was Mary Scott née Egerton (1764-1840). They married on 13 January 1824 at Haddenham, Buckinghamshire.[15] She was the widow of his tutor, Thomas Scott. On 28 July 1842 Dawes married Ann Welsby née Coupland (1805-1860).[16] She was the widow of Ormskirk solicitor John Welsby (1800-1839) whom she had married on 16 January 1824.[17]

Selected writings

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: MNRAS..29 Page 116.
  2. https://www.chmuseum.org.uk/ Christ's Hospital Museum
  3. Book: Hockey, Thomas . The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers . 2009 . . 978-0-387-31022-0 . 22 August 2012 .
  4. Nightingale, Benjamin, Lancashire nonconformity, or, Sketches, historical & descriptive, of the Congregational and old Presbyterian churches in the county. John Heywood, 1890-1893, p200-2
  5. Proctor, R A, "Canals on the Planet Mars", The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 14 April, 1882, p7, column 7.
  6. Sharp, Steve, with Wellby, Michael, "Hopefield House, Station Rd and the Rev Dr WR Dawes", The Haddenham Chronicles, No 2, Autumn 2006, Haddenham Museum Trust, pp40-2
  7. https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/about/thorrowgood.telescope Institute of Astronomy - Thorrowgood Telescope
  8. Proctor, R A, Other worlds than ours; the plurality of worlds studied under the light of recent scientific researches, 1896, opp p105
  9. https://catalogues.royalsociety.org/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=EC%2f1865%2f03 Dawes, William Rutter: certificate of election to the Royal Society
  10. https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/15/4/148/2604625 Address delivered by the President, G. B. Airy, Esq. F.R.S., Astronomer Royal, on presenting the Medal of the Society to the Rev. William Rutter Dawes
  11. https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1430 Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Moon - Dawes - crater
  12. https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1431 Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Mars - Dawes - crater
  13. https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Rings#saturn Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Ring and Ring Gap Nomenclature - Saturn
  14. Nicholson, Philip D. et al, (October 2014) "Noncircular features in Saturn’s rings II: The C ring", Icarus, Volume 241, p383 ("8. Dawes gap and embedded ringlet")
  15. Buckinghamshire Marriage Index, findmypast (subscription required)
  16. Marriott, R A, Dawes, William Rutter (1799–1868) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (via libraries)
  17. England Marriages 1538-1973, findmypast (subscription required)

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