Background

William was born on a farm in Mendon, Ohio, in August 10, 1862. He was the son of John Milton and Mary Catherine (Severns) Hussey.

Education

Funds could not be spared from the proceeds of the farm for a college education, but he taught school and ran a printing press, and finally entered the University of Michigan in 1882. By the end of his sophomore year his savings were all used up and he took a position with a party of railroad surveyors. Reentering college, he graduated in 1889 in civil engineering.

Career

After a part of a year in the Nautical Almanac Office at Washington, returned to Michigan as an instructor. During 1891-92 he was acting director of the observatory. He was then called to Leland Stanford Junior University as assistant professor of astronomy and was soon promoted to a full professorship. While at Stanford he was often a volunteer assistant at the Lick Observatory, and in 1896 he accepted a position as astronomer there.

His chief interest lay in micrometrical observation; he was a master of the technique of exact measurement and his early observations of comets, satellites, and double stars at once established his reputation as an observer. In the years 1898-1900 he remeasured the double stars discovered by Otto Struve. All previous measures of these stars were collected and discussed, and the results brought together in Volume V (1901) of the Publications of the Lick Observatory. In July 1899 he joined R. G. Aitken in a scrutiny of all stars brighter than the ninth magnitude between the north pole and -22° declination. Hussey's share of the discoveries of double stars numbered 1, 327. In 1905 he was called to the directorship of the observatory in Ann Arbor. Here he developed and carried out plans for the extension of the observatory, including buildings, equipment, and an instrument shop in which was built the mounting for the 37 1/2-inch reflector.

With astronomical research and an enviable reputation for astronomical instruction well established at Michigan, he was ready to turn to the realization of his long cherished plan to carry the search for double stars into the southern hemisphere, a search he had begun in 1903, when he had studied the "seeing" in southern California, Arizona, and Australia for the Carnegie Institution of Washington. R. P. Lamont of Chicago, a college classmate, stood ready to finance the project. Drawings for a large telescope were made in 1910 and the lenses ordered, but there were serious delays in obtaining the glass disks. Finally, in 1922, an opportunity came to purchase 27-inch disks in Jena, and the lenses were finished in 1925.

In the meantime, however, much else had happened. In 1911 Hussey was offered the directorship of the observatory at La Plata, in the Argentine Republic. Arrangements were soon made whereby he should divide his time about equally between the observatories at Ann Arbor and La Plata. On his arrival in South America in July 1911 he encountered many unexpected difficulties and discouragements, but when he left again in January 1912 the reorganization was well under way, plans had been matured and initiated, and nearly one hundred more southern double stars discovered. This arrangement continued for six years. The staff was increased, an observatory publication launched, and an activity started which continues after twenty years. When the lenses ordered in 1910 were finished, the telescope was started on its way to South Africa, and in 1926 Hussey, accompanied by Mrs. Hussey, sailed for London on his way to Bloemfontein. A few evenings later, while seated at dinner with English friends, he died.

Achievements

• He is most famous for the discovery and study of close binary stars. Hussey received the Lalande Medal of the Paris Academy of Sciences with R. G. Aitken in 1906.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Mathematical theories of planetary motions

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Double Star Catalogues, 1-14

    ( This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923....)

  • Logarithmic and Other Mathematical Tables 1895

    (Originally published in 1895. This volume from the Cornel...)

  • Notes on popular astronomy
  • Lick observatory papers

Membership

He was a foreign associate of the Royal Astronomical Society and member of many other societies. He was president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1897 and secretary of the American Astronomical Society from 1908 to 1912.

Connections

In 1895 he married Ethel Fountain, who died in 1915. He was survived by Mary McNeal (Reed) Hussey, whom he married in 1917, and by one son and one daughter.

Father:

John Milton Hussey

1838–1920

Mother:

Mary C Severns Hussey

1835–1918

Second wife:

Mary McNeal Hussey

1861–1932

First wife:

Ethel Fountain Hussey

1865–1915

References

• Who's Who in America (1926 - 1927), Vol. 14: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Men and Women in the United States