In the Dark

I was reminded via Twitter that today is the 200th anniversary of the first formal meeting of the Astronomical Society of London which took place on 10th March 1820. This society turned into the Royal Astronomical Society when it was given a Royal Charter in 1831. Here is the first page of the the Minutes of that first meeting:

Those of you who have been paying attention will recall that the decision to form the Society was taken at a dinner in January 1820 and the bicentenary of this event was celebrated in January by the RAS Dining Club (of which I am a member).

Club Dinners usually take place after the Open Meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society on the second Friday of the month. Sadly, however, there won’t be a Club Dinner this Friday as it has been cancelled owing to the Coronavirus emergency. I’ll have to make do with beans on toast again then.

Incidentally, I thought I’d share this list of the first 200(ish) members of the Royal Astronomical Society (PDF) kindly sent to me by former Cardiff colleague Mike Edmunds. There are some illustrious names among the early members, including Laplace and Bessel, as well as some oddities, such as His Excellency Alexis Greig (Vice Admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy) and Edward Riddle, Esq. (First Mathematical Master, the Royal Naval Asylum).

This entry was posted on March 10, 2020 at 11:24 am and is filed under Biographical, History, The Universe and Stuff with tags RAS Club, RAS Dining Club, Royal Astronomical Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.