A portrait of De la Rue.
A photo of De la Rue.
Photograph of a solar eclipse at Rivabellosa, Spain, July 18, 1860, captured by the Kew Photoheliograph, a combined camera and telescope designed by Warren De la Rue.
The sun, showing a sunspot. Lithograph.
An electric bulb made by De la Rue.
De la Rue received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1862.
De la Rue received a Royal medal from the Royal Society in 1864 for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860.
The Collège Sainte-Barbe.
De la Rue received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1862.
De la Rue received a Royal medal from the Royal Society in 1864 for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860.
A portrait of De la Rue.
A photo of De la Rue.
Photograph of a solar eclipse at Rivabellosa, Spain, July 18, 1860, captured by the Kew Photoheliograph, a combined camera and telescope designed by Warren De la Rue.
The sun, showing a sunspot. Lithograph.
An electric bulb made by De la Rue.
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Warren De la Rue was born on January 18, 1815, in Guernsey, an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy. He was the eldest son of Thomas de la Rue, a printer, and Jane Warren. His father was the founder of the large firm of stationers in London.
De la Rue's early education was at the Collège Sainte-Barbe in Paris.
In his teens he entered his father’s printing shop and there first came into contact with science and technology.
De la Rue’s first scientific contributions were to chemistry, in which he remained interested throughout his life. He made a small improvement of the Daniell constant voltage battery that was announced in his first paper (1836). With August Wilhelm Hofmann, the great German teacher of chemistry in London, he edited an English version of the first two volumes of Liebig and Kopp’s Jahresbericht, which served to acquaint English chemists with the work of their Continental colleagues.
De la Rue’s major contribution was to astronomy. He was drawn to this science by another inventor and businessman, James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam pile driver. Nasmyth had been fascinated with the moon for years and had personally drawn some of the best pictures available of our satellite. De la Rue took up astronomy with the purpose of producing more accurate and detailed pictures of the nearby heavenly bodies. He, too, was an excellent draftsman and his drawings of Saturn, the moon, and the sun are superb.
His observation of detail was enhanced by improvements he introduced into the polishing and figuring of the thirteen-inch reflecting telescope that he built for his own observatory at Canonbury. His real ability, however, was revealed only when he turned his talents to the application of photography to astronomy. He was able to make stereoscopic plates of the moon’s surface, which brought to light details never before noted. He invented a photoheliographic telescope that permitted the sun’s surface to be mapped photographically. Applying the stereoscopic methods he had used on the moon, he showed in 1861 that sunspots are depressions in the sun’s atmosphere, thus verifying a suggestion made in the eighteenth century by Alexander Wilson of Glasgow.
In later life (1868-1883) De la Rue conducted a series of experiments on electric discharge through gases. They merely multiplied data without leading to any significant theoretical advance.
He died in London on the 19th of April 1889.
De la Rue is remembered as a prominent scientist who contributed much to knowledge of chemistry and electricity, particularly through his experiments with batteries - he invented the silver chloride cell - and his studies of platinum-filament light bulbs and electrical discharge in gases.
He was Commander of the Legion of Honor (France), Commander of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus (Italy) and Knight of the Imperial Order of the Rose (Brazil).
The crater De La Rue on the Moon is named after him.
In 1862 De la Rue received the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in 1864 a Royal medal from the Royal Society, for his observations on the total eclipse of the sun in 1860, and for his improvements in astronomical photography. He was awarded the Lalande Prize in 1866.
De la Rue was an original member of the Chemical Society, serving as its president in the years 1867-1869 and 1879-1880. He was a fellow of the Royal Society (1850) and the Royal Astronomical Society, serving as its president from 1864 to 1866. He was also a member and president of the Royal Institution and the Royal Microscopical Society.
De la Rue's understanding of machinery and technology was the basis of his contributions to science. He was not an original thinker but one who perfected instruments and, through these improvements, made accurate observations of theoretical interest.
De la Rue was married to Georgiana, the third daughter of Thomas Bowles of Guernsey; they had four sons and one daughter.
