Background
Frank Watson Dyson was born on January 8, 1868, in Measham, Leicestershire, England. He was the son of Reverend Watson Dyson, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Frances Dodwell. They moved to Yorkshire in his youth.
Dyson attended Bradford Grammar School.
Dyson studied mathematics and astronomy at Trinity College, Cambridge, being placed Second Wrangler in 1889.
Dyson near a spectroscope which was used to gauge eclipses around the world.
Dyson at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, c. 1927.
Between 1894-1906, Dyson lived at 6 Vanbrugh Hill, Blackheath, London SE3, in a house now marked by a blue plaque.
The crater Dyson on the Moon is named after him.
Dyson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1901.
Dyson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1906.
Dyson served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1911 tot 1913.
Dyson received the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1922.
Dyson received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1925.
Dyson was named the Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1926.
Eclipse photograph from 1919 expedition.
Frank Watson Dyson was born on January 8, 1868, in Measham, Leicestershire, England. He was the son of Reverend Watson Dyson, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Frances Dodwell. They moved to Yorkshire in his youth.
In Yorkshire Dyson attended Heath Grammar School, Halifax, and subsequently won scholarships to Bradford Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and astronomy, being placed Second Wrangler in 1889.
On graduating in the mathematical tripos at Cambridge, Dyson began research on gravitational problems. He was appointed chief assistant at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1894; astronomer royal for Scotland in 1905; and in 1910 he returned to Greenwich to become the eleventh astronomer royal. It was by cooperation in, and direction of, the preparation of fundamental astronomical measurements that he contributed significantly to the progress of astronomy.
From 1894 Dyson improved the methods used at Greenwich for reduction of the measurement of star positions from photographs, and during the opposition of Eros in 1900-1901, he organized the observations and reduction of the data compiled from them to provide new standards of accuracy. With W. G. Thackeray he reobserved the 4,239 stars that had been cataloged by Stephen Groombridge from 1806 to 1816 and compared positions so that proper motions of the stars could be determined over an eighty-year interval. Following this, Dyson extended J. C. Kapteyn’s hypothesis of two star streams to fainter stars and rephotographed the stars in the internationally delimited Greenwich astrographic zone to allow more proper motions to be determined.
In observing the total solar eclipses of 1900, 1901, and 1905, Dyson measured the wavelengths of 1,200 lines in the spectrum of the chromosphere and compared the strengths with those for which laboratory evidence was available. His intensity measurements confirmed the work of J. N. Lockyer and A. Fowler, which was then subject to much criticism. It was due to Dyson that two Greenwich expeditions, one to Principe Island in Spanish Guinea and one to Sobral in Brazil, were sent to observe the 1919 solar eclipse. They verified the deflection of starlight by the sun’s gravitational field to the degree predicted by relativity theory.
Dyson took much interest in time determination: he installed the Shortt synchronome free-pendulum clocks in 1924 and arranged for public radio time signals that were soon extended to give worldwide coverage.
Dyson retired on February 28, 1933, but continued to offer advice, particularly on the removal of the Radcliffe Observatory from Oxford to Pretoria, South Africa. He died on board of a ship while traveling from Australia to England in 1939 and was buried at sea.
Dyson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1901, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1906, served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1911 tot 1913, and vice-president of the Royal Society from 1913 to 1915.
A strong supporter of the International Astronomical Union, Dyson attended every meeting from 1922 to 1935.
Dyson had a genius for collaboration, and the majority of his published work was as joint author.
His charming hospitality at Greenwich was a byword among astronomers from every country.
In 1894 Dyson married Caroline Bisset Best, the daughter of Palemon Best, with whom he had two sons and six daughters.