THE OBSERVATORY BUILDINGS
Like a living organism, Greenwich Observatory bears the record of
its life-history in its structure. It was not one of those favoured
institutions that have sprung complete and fully equipped from the
liberality of some great king or private millionaire. As we have
seen, it was originally established on the most modest--not to say
meagre--scale, and has been enlarged just as it has been absolutely
necessary. To quote again from Professor Newcomb--
'Whenever any part of it was found insufficient for its purpose,
new rooms were built for the special object in view, and thus
it has been growing from the beginning by a process as natural
and simple as that of the growth of a tree. Even now the very
value of its structure is less than that of several other public
observatories, though it eclipses them all in the results of its
work.'
Entering the courtyard--an enclosure some eighty feet deep by
ninety feet in extreme breadth--by the great gate, we see before
us Flamsteed House, the original building of the Observatory.
Flamsteed's little domain was only some twenty-seven yards wide
by fifty deep, and for buildings comprised little beyond a small
dwelling-house on the ground floor, and one fine room above it. This
room--the original Greenwich Observatory--still remains, and is
used as a council room by the official Board of Visitors, who come
down to the Observatory on the first Saturday in June, to examine
into its condition and to receive the Astronomer Royal's report. The
room is called, from its shape, the Octagon Room, and is well known
to Londoners from the great north window which looks out straight
over the river between the twin domes of the Hospital.
In Bradley's time, about 1749, the first extension of the domains
of the Observatory took place to the south and east of the original
building, the direction in which, on the whole, all subsequent
extensions have taken place, owing to the fact that the original
building was constructed at the extremity of what Sir George Airy
was accustomed to call a 'peninsula'--a projecting spur of the
Blackheath plateau, from which the ground falls away very sharply on
three sides and on part of the fourth.
The Observatory domain at present is fully two hundred yards in
greatest length, with an average breadth of about sixty. Nearly the
whole of this accession took place under the directorates of Pond
and Airy. The present instruments are, therefore, as a rule, the
more modern in direct proportion to their distance from the Octagon
Room--the old original Observatory. There is one notable exception.
The very first extension of the Observatory buildings, made in
the time of Halley, the second Astronomer Royal, consisted in the
setting up of a strong pier, to carry two quadrant telescopes. The
pier still remains, but now forms the base of the support of the
twin telescopes devoted to the photographic survey of the heavens
for the International Chart.
Standing just within the gate of the courtyard, and looking
westward, that is toward Flamsteed House, we have immediately on
our right hand the porter's lodge; a little farther forward, also
on the right, the Transit Pavilion, a small building sheltering
a portable transit instrument; and farther forward, still on the
right, the entrance to the Chronograph Room. Above the Chronograph
Room is a little, inconveniently-placed dome, containing a small
equatorially-mounted telescope, known as the Shuckburgh. Beyond the
Chronograph Room a door opens on to the North Terrace, over which
is seen the great north window of the Octagon Room. Close by the
door of the Chronograph Room a great wooden staircase rises to the
roof of the main building. It is not an attractive-looking ascent,
as the steps overlap inconveniently. Still, there is no record of
an accident upon them, and those who venture on the climb to the
roof, where are placed the anemometers and the turret carrying the
time-ball, which is dropped daily at 1 p.m., will be well repaid by
the splendid view of the river which is there afforded to them.
Passing under this staircase, on the wall by its side is seen the
following inscription:--
CAROLUS II^S REX OPTIMUS
ASTRONOMIÆ ET NAUTICÆ ARTIS
PATRONUS MAXIMUS
SPECULAM HANC IN UTRIUSQUE COMMODUM
FECIT
ANNO D^{NI} MDCLXXVI. REGNI SUI XXVIII.
Curante Iona Moore milite
R. T. S. G.
[Illustration: THE ASTRONOMER ROYAL'S HOUSE.
(_From a photograph by Mr. Lacey._)]
In the extreme angle of the courtyard is the entrance to the mean
solar clock cupboard, and to the staircase leading up to the Octagon
Room. At the head of this staircase in a small closet is the winch
for winding up the time-ball.
Coming back into the courtyard, and crossing the face of the
Astronomer Royal's private house, the range of buildings is reached
which form the left hand or south side of the enclosure. Entering
the first of these, we find ourselves in the Lower Computing Room,
which is devoted to the 'Time Department.' The next room which opens
out of it, as we turn eastwards, was Bradley's Transit Room, but is
now used for the storage of chronometers. Passing through Bradley's
Transit Room, we come to the present Transit Room, which brings
us close to the great gate. The range of buildings is, however,
continued somewhat farther, containing on the ground floor some
small sitting-rooms and a fire-proof room for records.
[Illustration: THE COURTYARD.
(_From a photograph by Mr. Lacey._)]
Turning back to the Lower Computing Room, we notice in it the stone
pier, already alluded to, which was set up by Halley, and formed
the first addition to the original Observatory of Flamsteed. The
Lower Computing Room itself and Bradley's Transit Room were due
to the Astronomer after which the latter is named. An iron spiral
staircase in the middle of the Lower Computing Room leads up to the
Upper Computing Room, and above that to the Astrographic dome, so
called because the twin telescope housed therein is devoted to the
work of the Astrographic Chart--a chart of the entire sky to be made
by eighteen co-operating observatories by means of photography. In
this way it is intended to secure a record of the places of far
more stars than could be done by the ordinary methods, and in this
project Greenwich has necessarily taken a premier place. This is
a work which, whilst it is the legitimate and natural outcome of
the original purpose of the Observatory, is yet pushed beyond what
is necessary for any mere utilitarian assistance to navigation. For
the sailor it will always be sufficient to know the places of a
mere handful of the brightest stars, and the vast majority of those
in the great photographic map will never be visible in the little
portable telescope of the sailor's sextant. But it will be freely
admitted that in the case of an enterprise of this nature, in which
the observatories of so many different nations were uniting, and
which was so precisely on the lines of its original charter, though
an extension of it, it was impossible for Greenwich to hold back on
the plea that the work was not entirely utilitarian.
Descending again to the Lower Computing Room, and passing through
it, not to the east, into Bradley's Transit Room, but through a
little lobby to the south, we come upon an inconvenient wooden
staircase winding round a great stone pillar with three rays. This
pillar is the support of Airy's altazimuth, and very nearly marks
the place where Flamsteed set up his original sextant.
Returning again to the Lower Computing Room, and passing out to the
east, just in front of the Time Superintendent's desk, we enter a
small passage running along the back of Bradley's Transit Room, and
from this passage enter the present Transit Room near its south end.
Just before reaching the Transit Room, however, we pass the Reflex
Zenith Tube, a telescope of a very special kind.
Immediately outside the Transit Room is a staircase leading on the
first floor to two rooms long used as libraries, and to the leads
above them, on which is a small dome containing the Sheepshanks
equatorial. These libraries are over the small sitting-rooms already
referred to. The fire-proof Record Rooms, two stories in height,
terminate this range of buildings.
Beyond the Record Rooms the boundary turns sharply south, where
stands a large octagonal building surmounted by a dome of oriental
appearance, a 'circular versatile roof,' as the Visitors would have
called it a hundred years ago. This dome--which has been likened,
according to the school of æsthetics in which its critics have been
severally trained, to the Taj at Agra, a collapsed balloon, or a
mammoth Spanish onion--houses the largest refractor in England, the
'South-east Equatorial' of twenty-eight inches aperture. But, though
the largest that England possesses, it would appear but as a pigmy
beside some of the great telescopes for which America is famous.
Beyond this dome the hollow devoted to the Astronomer Royal's
private garden reduces the Observatory ground to a mere 'wasp's
waist,' a narrow, inconvenient passage from the old and north
observatory to the younger southern one.
The first building, as the grounds begin to widen out to the south,
contains the New Altazimuth, a transit instrument which can be
turned into any meridian. A library of white brick and a low wooden
cruciform building--the Magnetic Observatory--follow it closely.
This latter building houses the Magnetic Department, a department
which, though it lies aside from the original purposes of the
Observatory, as defined in the warrant given to Flamsteed, is yet
intimately connected with navigation, and was founded by Airy very
early in his period of office. This deals with the observation of
the changes in the force and direction of the earth's magnetism, an
inquiry which the greater delicacy of modern compasses, and, in more
recent times, the use of iron instead of wood in the construction of
ships, has rendered imperative.
Closely associated with the Magnetic Department is the
Meteorological. Weather forecasts, so necessary for the safety
of shipping round our coasts, are not issued from Greenwich
Observatory, any more than the _Nautical Almanac_ is now issued from
it. But just as the Observatory furnishes the astronomical data upon
which the almanac is based, so also a considerable department is set
apart for furnishing observations to be used by the Meteorological
Office at Westminster for their daily predictions.
So far, the development of the Observatory had been along the
central line of assistance to navigation. But the 'Magnetic
Department' led on to a new one, which had but a secondary
connection with it. It had been discovered that the extent of
the daily range of the magnetic needle, and the amount of the
disturbances to which it was subjected, were in close connection
with the numbers and size of the spots on the sun's surface. This
led to the institution of a daily photographic record of the state
of the sun's surface, a record of which Greenwich has now the
complete monopoly.
[Illustration: PLAN OF OBSERVATORY AT PRESENT TIME.
(For key to plan, see p. 135.)]
KEY TO THE PLAN OF THE OBSERVATORY ON PAGE 134.
1. Chronograph Room.
2. Old Altazimuth Dome.
3. Safe Room.
4. Computing Room.
5. Bradley's Transit Room.
6. Transit Circle Room.
7. Assistants' Room.
8. Chief Assistant's Room.
9. Computers' Room.
10. Record Rooms.
11. Chronometer Rooms and South-east Dome.
12. Greenhouse and Outbuildings.
14. New Library.
15. Magnetic Observatory.
16. Offices.
19. Sheds.
23. Winch Room for Time-ball.
24. Porter's Lodge.
25. New Transit Pavilion.
26. New Altazimuth Pavilion.
27. Museum: New Building.
28. South Wing "
29. North Wing "
30. West Wing "
31. East Wing "
F. Rooms built for Flamsteed.
H. Added by Halley.
B. " Bradley.
M. " Maskelyne.
A. " Airy.
F'F'. Flamsteed's boundaries.
M'M'. Maskelyne's " 1790.
P'P'. Pond's " 1814.
A'A'. Airy's " 1837.
A"A". Airy's " 1868.
Beyond the Magnetic Observatory the ground widens out into an area
about equal to that of the northern part, and the new building
just completed, and which is now emphatically 'The Observatory,'
stands clear before us. The transfer to this stately building of the
computing rooms, libraries, and store rooms has been aptly described
as a shift in the latitude of Greenwich Observatory, which still
preserves its longitude. It may be noted that the only two buildings
of any architectural pretensions in the whole range are--Flamsteed's
original observatory, built by Sir Christopher Wren, and containing
little beyond the octagon room, in the extreme north; and this
newest building in the extreme south.
This 'New Observatory,' like the old, and like the great
South-eastern tower, is an octagon in its central portion. But
whilst the two other great buildings are simply octagonal, here the
octagon serves only as the centre from which radiate four great
wings to the four points of the compass. The building is by far the
largest on the ground, but in little accord with the popular idea of
an astronomer as perpetually looking through a telescope, carries
but a single dome; its best rooms being set apart as 'computing
rooms,' for the use of those members of the staff who are employed
in the calculations and other clerical work, which form, after all,
much the greater portion of the Observatory routine.
An observer with the transit instrument, for instance, will take
only three or four minutes to make a complete determination of the
place of a single star. But that observation will furnish work to
the computers for many hours afterwards. Or, to take a photograph of
the sun will occupy about five minutes in setting the instrument,
whilst the actual exposure will take but the one-thousandth part of
a second. But the plate, once exposed, will have to be developed,
fixed, and washed; then measured, and the measures reduced, and, _on
the average_, will provide one person with work for four days before
the final results have been printed and published.
It is easy to see, then, that observing, though the first duty of
the Observatory, makes the smallest demand on its time. The visitor
who comes to the Observatory by day (and none are permitted to do
so by night) finds the official rooms not unlike those of Somerset
House or Whitehall, and its occupants for the most part similarly
engaged in what is, apparently, merely clerical work. An examination
of the big folios would of course show that instead of being ledgers
of sales of stamps, or income-tax schedules, they referred to stars,
planets, and sun-spots; but for one person actively engaged at a
telescope, the visitor would see a dozen writing or computing at a
desk.
The staff, like the building, is the result of a gradual
development, and bears traces of its life history in its
composition. First comes the Astronomer Royal, the representative
and successor of the original 'King's Astronomer,' the Rev. John
Flamsteed. But the 'single surly and clumsy labourer,' which was
all that the 'Merry Monarch' could grant for his assistance, is now
represented by a large and complex body of workers; each varied
class and rank of which is a relic of some stage in the progress of
the Observatory to its present condition.
The following extract from the Annual Report of the Astronomer
Royal to the Board of Visitors, June, 1900, describes the present
_personnel_ of the establishment:--
'The staff at the present time is thus constituted, the names in
each class being arranged in alphabetical order:--
'Chief assistants--Mr. Cowell, Mr. Dyson.
'Assistants--Mr. Hollis, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Maunder, Mr. Nash, Mr.
Thackeray.
'Second-class assistants--Mr. Bryant, Mr. Crommelin.
'Clerical assistant--Mr. Outhwaite.
'Established computers--Mr. Bowyer, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Edney, Mr.
Furner, Mr. Rendell, and one vacancy.
'The two second-class assistants will be replaced by higher
grade established computers as vacancies occur.
'Mr. Dyson and Mr. Cowell have the general superintendence of
all the work of the Observatory. Mr. Maunder is charged with
the heliographic photography and reductions, and with the
preparation of the Library Catalogue. Mr. Lewis has charge
of the time-signals and chronometers, and of the 28-inch
equatorial. Mr. Thackeray superintends the miscellaneous
astronomical computations, including the preparation of
the new Ten-Year Catalogue. Mr. Hollis has charge of the
photographic mapping of the heavens, the measurement of the
plates, and the computations for the Astrographic Catalogue. Mr.
Crommelin undertakes the altazimuth and Sheepshanks equatorial
reductions, and Mr. Bryant the transit and meridian zenith
distance reductions and time-determinations. In the magnetic and
meteorological branch, Mr. Nash has charge of the whole of the
work. Mr. Outhwaite acts as responsible accountant officer; has
charge of the library, records, manuscripts, and stores, and
conducts the official correspondence. As regards the established
computers, Mr. Bowyer, Mr. Furner, Mr. Davidson, and Mr. Rendell
assist Mr. Lewis, Mr. Thackeray, Mr. Hollis, and Mr. Bryant
respectively, and Mr. Edney assists Mr. Nash.
'There are at the present time twenty-four supernumerary
computers employed at the Observatory, ten being attached to
the astronomical branch, two the chronometer branch, six to the
astrographic, one to the heliographic, four to the magnetic and
meteorological, and one to the clerical.
'A foreman of works, with two carpenters, and two labourers;
a skilled mechanic with an assistant; a gate porter, two
messengers, a watchman, a gardener, and a charwoman, are also
attached to the Observatory.
'The whole number of persons regularly employed at the
Observatory is fifty-three.'
The day work, as said before, is by far the greatest in amount,
the 'office hours' being from nine till half-past four, with an
hour's interval. The arrangements for the night watches present some
complications.
For many years the instruments in regular use were two only, the
transit circle and the altazimuth. The arrangements for observing
were simple. Four assistants divided the work between them thus: an
assistant was on duty with the transit circle one day, his watch
beginning about six a.m. or a little later, and ending about three
the following morning; a watch of twenty-one hours in maximum
length. The second day his duties were entirely computational, and
were only two or three hours in length. The third day he had a full
day's work on the calculations, followed by a night duty with the
altazimuth. The latter instrument might give him a very easy watch
or a terribly severe one. If the moon were a young one it was easy,
especially if the night was clear, as in that case an hour was
enough to secure the observations required.
Very different was the case with a full moon, especially in the
long, often cloudy, nights of winter. Then a vigilant watch had to
be kept from sunset to sunrise, so that in case of a short break
in the clouds the moon might yet be observed. Such a watch was the
severest (with one exception) that an assistant had to undergo.
His fourth day would then resemble his second, and with the fifth
day a second cycle of his quartan fever would commence, the symptoms
following each other in the same sequence as before.
Such a routine carried on with iron inflexibility was exceedingly
trying, as it was absolutely impossible for an observer to keep any
regularity in his hours of rest or times for meals.
This routine has been considerably modified by the present
Astronomer Royal, partly because the instruments now in regular
daily use are five instead of two, and partly because a less
stringent system has proved not merely far less wearing to the
observers, but also much more prolific of results. It was impossible
for a man to be at his best for long under the old _régime_, and
from forty-six to forty-seven has been an ordinary age for an
assistant to break down under the strain.
One point in which the observing work has been lightened has been in
the discontinuance of the altazimuth observations at the full of the
moon, another in the shortening of the hours of the transit circle
watch; and a further and most important one in the arrangement that
the observers with the larger instruments should have help at their
work. The net result of these changes has been a most striking
increase in the amount of work achieved. Thus, whilst in the year
ending May 20, 1875, 3780 transits were taken with the transit
circle, and 3636 determinations of north polar distance; in that
ending May 10, 1895, the numbers had risen to 11,240 and 11,006
respectively, the telescope remaining precisely the same.
One principle of Airy's rule still remains. So far as possible no
observer is on duty for two consecutive days, but a long day of desk
work and observing is followed by a short day of desk work without
observing.
It will be readily understood that with five principal telescopes
in constant work and one or two minor ones, some demanding two
observers, others only one, each telescope having its special
programme and its special hours of work, whilst by no means every
member of the staff is authorized to observe with all instruments
indifferently, it becomes a somewhat intricate matter to arrange the
weekly _rota_ in strict accordance with the foregoing principle, and
with the further one, that whilst a considerable amount of Sunday
observing is inevitable, the average duty of an observer should be
three days a week, not seven days a fortnight. There is a story,
received with much reserve at Cambridge, that there was once a man
at that university who had mastered all the colours and combinations
of shades and colours of the various colleges and clubs. If so
gifted a being ever existed, he may be paralleled by the Greenwich
assistant who can predict for any future epoch the sequence of
duties throughout the entire establishment. At any rate, one of the
first items in the week's programme is the preparation of the _rota_
for the week, or rather, to use an ecclesiastical term, for the
'octave,' _i.e._ from the Monday to the Monday following.
The special work to be carried out on any telescope is likewise
a matter of programme. For the transit circle a list of the most
important objects to be observed is supplied for the observer's
use, and the general lines upon which the other stars are to be
selected from a huge 'Working Catalogue' are well understood.
With some of the other telescopes the principles upon which the
objects are to be selected are laid down, but the actual choice
is left to the discretion of the observer at the time. There
is no time for the watcher to spend in what the outsider would
regard as 'discovery'; such as sweeping for comets or asteroids,
hunting for variable stars, sketching planets, and so forth.
Indeed, there is a story current in the Observatory that some fifty
years ago, when the tide of asteroid discovery first set in, Airy
found an assistant, since famous, working with a telescope on his
'off-duty' night. That stern disciplinarian asked what business the
assistant had to be there on his free night, and on being told he
was 'searching for new planets,' he was severely reprimanded and
ordered to discontinue at once. A similar energy would not meet
so gruff a discouragement to-day; but the routine work so fully
occupies both staff and telescopes that an assistant may be most
thoroughly devoted to his science, and yet pass a decade at the
Observatory without ever seeing those 'show places' of the sky which
an amateur would have run over in the first week after receiving his
telescope. For example, there is no refractor in the British Isles
so competent to bring out the vivid green light of the great Orion
nebula--that marvellous mass of glowing, curdling, emerald cloud--or
the indescribable magnificence of the myriad suns that cluster
like swarming bees or the grapes of Eshcol in the constellation of
Hercules; yet probably most of the staff have never seen either
spectacle through it. The professional astronomer who is worth his
salt will find abundance of charm and interest in his work, but he
will not,
'Like a girl,
Valuing the giddy pleasures of the eyes,'
consider the charm to lie mainly in the occasional sight of
wonderful beauty which his work may bring to him, nor the interest
in some chance phenomenon which may make his name known.
It is not every field of astronomy that is cultivated at Greenwich.
The search for comets and for 'pocket planets' forms no part of
its programme; and the occupation so fascinating to those who take
it up, of drawing the details on the surfaces of the moon, Mars,
Jupiter, or Saturn, has been but little followed. Such work is here
incidental, not fundamental, and the same may be said of certain
spectroscopic observations of new or variable stars, and of many
similar subjects. Work such as this is most interesting to the
general public, and is followed with much devotion by many amateur
astronomers. For that very reason it does not form an integral
part of the programme of our State observatory. But work which
is necessary for the general good, or for the advancement of the
science, and which demands observations carried on continuously for
many years, and strict unity of instruments and methods, cannot
possibly be left to chance individual zeal, and is therefore rightly
made the first object at Greenwich.
Those striking discoveries which from time to time appeal strongly
to the popular imagination, and which have rendered so justly
famous some of the great observatories of the sister continent, have
not often been made here.
Its work has, none the less, been not only useful but essential. A
century ago, when we were engaged in the hand-to-hand struggle with
Napoleon, by far the most brilliant part of that naval war which we
waged against the French, and the most productive of prize-money,
was carried on by our cruisers, who captured valuable prizes in
every sea. But a much greater service, indeed an absolutely vital
one, was rendered to the State by those line-of-battle ships which
were told off to watch the harbours wherein the French fleet was
taking refuge. This was a work void of the excitement, interest,
and profit of cruising. It was monotonous, wearing, and almost
inglorious, but absolutely necessary to the very existence of
England. So the continuance for more than two centuries of daily
observations of places of moon, stars, and planets is likewise
'monotonous, wearing, and almost inglorious;' the one compensation
is that it is essential to the life of astronomy.
The eight Astronomers Royal have, as already said, kept the
Observatory strictly on the lines originally laid down for it,
subject, of course, to that enlargement which the growth of
the science has inevitably brought. But had they been inclined
to change its course, the Board of Visitors has been specially
appointed to bring them back to the right way. As already mentioned
in the account of Flamsteed, the Board dates from 1710, when it
practically consisted of the President and Council of the Royal
Society. Its Royal warrant lapsed on the death of Queen Anne, and
was not renewed at the accession of the two following sovereigns;
but in the reign of George III. a new warrant was issued under date
February 22, 1765; and this was renewed at the accession of George
IV. When William IV. came to the throne, the constitution of the
Board was extended, so as to give a representation to the new Royal
Astronomical Society, founded in 1820. The President of the Royal
Society is still chairman of the Board, but the Admiralty, of which
the Observatory is a department, the two Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge, and the Royal Astronomical Society are all represented on
it by _ex officio_ members, and twelve other members are contributed
by the Royal and Royal Astronomical Societies respectively, six
by each. The first Saturday in June is the appointed day for the
annual inspection by the Board, and for the presentation to it
of the Astronomer Royal's Report. To this all-important business
meeting has been added something of a social function, by the
invitation of many well-known astronomers and the leading men of the
allied sciences to inspect the results of the year, and to partake
of the chocolate and cracknels, which have been the traditional
refreshments offered on these occasions for a period 'whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary.'