At first Dawes intended to become a clergyman, but instead he studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1826, following the death of a sister, Dawes moved to Liverpool, and there he came under the influence of a Dissenting minister who persuaded him to take charge of a small congregation in Ormskirk.
At first Dawes intended to become a clergyman, but instead he studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1826, following the death of a sister, Dawes moved to Liverpool, and there he came under the influence of a Dissenting minister who persuaded him to take charge of a small congregation in Ormskirk.
William Rutter Dawes was an English astronomer. He made extensive drawings of Mars during its 1864 opposition. In 1867, Richard Anthony Proctor made a map of Mars based on these drawings.
Background
Dawes was born on March 19, 1799, in London, England, the son of William Dawes, also an astronomer, and Judith Rutter. His mother died when he was very young, and since his father was often abroad on colonial service, he was brought up by relatives and friends and his schooling was several times interrupted.
Education
At first Dawes intended to become a clergyman, but instead he studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1826, following the death of a sister, Dawes moved to Liverpool, and there he came under the influence of a Dissenting minister who persuaded him to take charge of a small congregation in Ormskirk.
Dawes had been interested in astronomy as a boy, and while at Liverpool he often observed the stars through an open window with a small but excellent refracting telescope. This refractor aroused his interest in double stars, and at Ormskirk he constructed an observatory with a five-foot Dollond refractor that had an aperture of 3.8 inches, which he used to make careful micrometrical measurements of double stars. His measures of 121 double stars made in the period 1830-1833 were published in 1835, and those of 100 double stars in the period 1834-1839 were published in 1851. Chronic ill health forced Dawes to give up his pastoral work, and in 1839 he left Ormskirk to take charge of George Bishop’s observatory in Regent’s Park. There he continued to devote himself to double stars, and his measurements of about 250 such stars were published in 1852 in Bishop’s Astronomical Observations at South Villa.
In 1844 Dawes left Bishop’s observatory and went to live near Cranbrook, Kent. There he equipped himself with a transit circle by William Simms that was two feet in diameter and an equatorial telescope by Georg Merz of 8½-foot focus and six-inch aperture with a delicate clockwork movement. Unfortunately his headaches and asthma continued, and these forced him for a time to live at the seaside resort of Torquay. In 1850 Dawes felt well enough to move to Maidstone, Kent, and there he observed the crape ring of Saturn on 25 and 29 November, losing priority to the Bonds by only ten days. At this period “the eagle-eyed Dawes” was establishing himself as a leading observer of Saturn through numerous meticulous observations of the planet and especially of the various rings. These observations and his double-star measurements led to the award of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1855.
In 1857 Dawes moved to Haddenham, near Thame, Oxfordshire, where he continued his observations despite rapidly deteriorating health. Dawes was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1865 and continued to observe at intervals until 1867.
Dawes married his second wife, Ann Welsby, on July 28, 1842, in Ormskirk. She was the widow of Ormskirk Solicitor John Welsby who died in October 1839 aged 39, just as William Dawes left Ormskirk.
The Astronomical Scrapbook
This collection of 83 articles on the history of astronomy is the harvest of a quarter of a century spent in seeking out intriguing, unusual and half-forgotten events.