Embedded Files
Post date: Jun 28, 2011 4:7:5 PM
William Rutter Dawes (1799 to 1868) lived in Wateringbury from 1850 to about 1856.
The following photo, courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society/Science photo library, shows him in 1865, after he left Wateringbury, holding his 41mm Dolland telescope.
In the 1851 census he is shown as living with his wife, Ann aged 45, and with two servants, a cook, Mary Apps, and a housemaid, Sarah Cronk, in Rose Cottage (near the Mill pond: a predecessor house to 'Broomsdown' is the prime contender) where he is recorded by the census as 'pursuing practical astronomy'. His correspondence (unreviewed) from his time at Wateringbury is held by the Royal Society 6-9 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AG, reference JH/A/248/52-59. See https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Persons&dsqSearch=Code==%27NA1247%27&dsqCmd=Show.tcl
for the Royal Society's biography of him.
During his 6 years in Wateringbury he is known
to have discovered a new ring, the interior dark ring, of Saturn on 29th November1850 from his Wateringbury observatory; the following photo of a wood carving presented by him to the Royal Astronomical Society is courtesy of the Royal Astronomical Society/Science photo library;
to have gone to Sweden in 1851 for the total eclipse;
to have set up his observatory here: in 1850 he had a telescope by Merz with a 6.5 inch apertureand a 102.5 inch focus, principally using a single lens magnifying 298 times; in 1854 he bought a 7 and 1/2 inch refractor telescope by Alvin Clarke; lamenting in late 1856 in a report to the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) about his 'large equatoreal not having been remounted since my removal from Wateringbury'.
to have been recognised for his work by winning the Gold Medal of the RAS in 1855.
He later was made a Fellow of The Royal Society (see http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Persons&dsqSearch=Code=='NA1247'&dsqCmd=Show.tcl) (he had become a Fellow of RAS before coming to Wateringbury), had craters on the moon and Mars and a gap in one of Saturn's rings named after him. He was a both a reverend (Methodist) and a medical doctor.
The following is an extract from The Carlisle Journal of 12th November 1852:
Miscellaneous. The Third Ring of Saturn.—The statement to the Illustrated London News of Saturday last respecting the performance of the Craig telescope on the planet Saturn conveys the impression that the slate-coloured ring was not seen in England till brought to light by that surpassingly powerful instrument. The facts, however, are very different, as appears from the printed records of the Royal Astronomical Society, and they are briefly as follows :—
On the 25th of November, 1850, the faint light of this new ring was discerned by the Rev. W. R. Dawes, of Wateringbury, near Maidstone, by the help of his 8 1/2 foot Munich refractor, having an aperture of 6 1/2inches; and on the 29th of the same month the form of this appendage was completely made out by him. This discovery preceded the arrival of the intelligence of Mr. Bond's observation on the same phenomenon, and was, therefore, entirely independent. On the 3rd of December the new ring was also seen by Mr. Lassell, of Liverpool, in Mr. Dawes's telescope, Mr. Bond's discovery being still unknown to either of these gentlemen; and, subsequently, it was frequently observed by them, and micrometrical measures of the breadth of the new ring were obtained by Mr. Dawes, who also announced his conviction that it was divided into two, which was confirmed in the following year by the observations of Mr. Otto Struve, with the large Munich refractor, at Pulkova, in Russia; that telescope being of the same size as Mr. Bond's, namely, about 15 inches in aperture. Several other English observers have since succeeded in making out the new ring; among whom may be especially mentioned Mr. Warren de la Rue, with his reflector of 13 inches aperture. Last year Mr. Lassell had a lithograph made of the appearance of Saturn in his 20-foot reflector, as seen on September 10, 1851, in which the slate coloured ring is plainly shown. In the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society for Nov., 1851, are contained details of observations of the planet by Mr. Lissell, Mr. Dawes, Mr. De la Rue, and Mr. Isaac Fletcher, in all of which the faint ring is distinctly noticed. The latter gentleman observed with a 10-foot refractor of 7 1/4 inches aperture (made by Mr. Thomas Cooke, of York; the property of Mr. Pattinson,) at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is, therefore, obvious, that the slate-coloured ring has been observed in England since Nov., 1850, and was discovered here before it was known to have been seen in America.
There are, however, several very interesting particulars respecting this most wonderful of the planets, for which we eagerly look to the monster telescope on Wandsworth-common for information ; such as the division of the exterior bright ring into two, and the still more curious subdivision of the interior bright ring into several narrow ones of different degrees of brightness, which was observed by Mr. Dawes in October, 1851, who mentions the fact in his paper, published in the Astronomical Monthly Notices for November for that. year. The same phenomenon was distinctly seen by Mr. Bond about the same time, as stated in a note from him in the " Monthly Notices for March" of the present year.— lllustrated London News.
His citation for his fellowship of The Royal Society in 1865 (courtesy of The Royal Society) is set out below:
Citation:
Since 1830 a Fellow of the Roy Astr Society. With the exception of the 4 1/2 yrs during which he made the Double-star Observations at the South Villa Observatory (belonging to the late Mr Bishop), he has had an Astronomical Observatory in active operation from the year 1830 until the present time, employed in measurement of double stars and scrutiny of the heavenly bodies with equatoreally mounted telescopes of 3 3/4 to 8 1/4 inches aperture.
With a Munich object-glass of 6 1/3 in. aperture he discovered the obscure ring of Saturn on the 25th & 29th of November, 1850, independently. In 1851 he contrived a solar eye-piece by means of which he discovered that the umbra of a solar spot is not really black, as previously supposed, but consists of a cloud-like stratum below the penumbra & usually having in it a perfectly black aperture forming the true nucleus (Mem RAS vol xxi, Part 2). He first proposed the use of certain telescopic apertures as a means of accurately detemining the magnitudes of stars (see Monthly Notices RAS 1851 June 13). He has contributed several papers printed in the Memoirs of the RAS & in the Monthly Notices, on the phenomena of the Total Solar Eclipse observed in Sweden in 1851, & on the telescopic appearances of Jupiter and of Saturn's rings, besides two series of the positions & distances of double-stars & notices of the Discovery of several new ones.
Proposers:
Warren De la Rue; G B Airy; James Glaisher; Robert Main; John Phillips; J Challis; Rosse; J F W Herschel; R C Carrington; E W Brayley; A Strange
See https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/about/thorrowgood.telescope for information on one of his telescopes, the Thorrowgood, acquired after he left Wateringbury and still in existence at Cambridge.
Dawes's father had had an interesting and varied life and gave his name to Dawes Point by Sydney Harbour Bridge.
At one time it was thought that Mill Cottage might have been the Rose Cottage in which he lived, however Greville Livett's obituary of R.H. Fremlin (although written in 1916, 60 years after he left Wateringbury) seems conclusive. The following photo shows what Mill Cottage in 1870 looked like shortly after his time in Wateringbury and before more recent alterations.
Courtesy: Ray Cattle
A photo after the alterations is shown below:
Courtesy: Ray Cattle
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse