Campbell was admitted to the University of Michigan in civil engineering, graduating in 1886.
Career
Gallery of William Campbell
Boulder, CO 80309, USA
From 1886 to 1888 Campbell was professor of mathematics at the University of Colorado.
Gallery of William Campbell
1915
Phoebe Apperson Hearst (left), William Wallace Campbell (center), Thomas Edison (right)
Gallery of William Campbell
7281 Mt Hamilton Rd, Mt Hamilton, CA 95140, USA
Campbell directed Lick Observatory officially from January 1, 1901 until 1923.
Gallery of William Campbell
Gallery of William Campbell
Gallery of William Campbell
1111 Franklin St, Oakland, CA 94607, USA
In 1923 Campbell entered another phase of his career by accepting appointment as president of the University of California. He kept this position until 1930.
In 1923 Campbell entered another phase of his career by accepting appointment as president of the University of California. He kept this position until 1930.
William Wallace Campbell was an American astronomer. He served as director of Lick Observatory from 1901 to 1930.
Background
Campbell was born on April 11, 1862, on farm in Hancock Company, Ohio. He was the sixth of seven children born to Robert Wilson Campbell and Harriet Welsh. Robert Campbell died in 1866, and Wallace was brought up on the family farm by his mother.
Education
Campbell attended local schools, where his ability was sufficiently recognized that he was urged to attend a major university. After a short period of teaching school he was admitted to the University of Michigan in civil engineering. During his junior year he came across Simon Newcomb’s Popular Astronomy, which so captivated him that he decided to make astronomy his career. Under the tutelage of J. M. Schaeberle he became a skilled observer and in his senior year served as an assistant in the university observatory. He also calculated comet orbits after having read Watson’s Theoretical Astronomy. He graduated with Bachelor of Sciences degree in 1886.
Campbell received honorary degrees from six American universities, the University of Western Australia, and Cambridge.
From 1886 to 1888 Campbell was professor of mathematics at the University of Colorado. In 1888 he returned to the University of Michigan as instructor to fill the vacancy left by Schaeberle, who had joined the newly opened Lick Observatory of the University of California, at Mount Hamilton, California. Campbell served as volunteer assistant at Lick in the summer of 1890 and joined that observatory in May 1891.
At the Lick Observatory, Campbell was a very active observer during his ten years (1891-1901) as staff astronomer. His contribution to his major field, spectroscopic observation, was fostered in 1893 when D.O. Mills donated funds for the construction of an adequate spectrograph for the thirty-six-inch Lick refractor, to be built to Campbell’s specifications. The Mills spectrograph was a design classic and played an important role in Campbell’s career. In 1898 Campbell went to India on the first of seven eclipse expeditions in which he actively participated: India (1898), Thomaston, Georgia (1900), Spain (1905), Flint Island (near Tahiti) (1908), Kiev (1914), Goldendale, Washington (1918), and Western Australia (1922).
On the death in 1900 of James E. Keeler, director of the Lick Observatory and earlier Campbell’s mentor in spectroscopic observations, Campbell was made acting director of the Lick Observatory, an appointment that was confirmed as of 1 January 1901. It is a measure of Campbell’s stature in his profession that he was the nominee recommended by all of the twelve leading astronomers whose advice had been sought by the president of the university, Benjamin Ide Wheeler. As director of the Lick Observatory, Campbell not only maintained its prominent position but in 1910, with the financial aid initially of Mills and later of others, established a southern station in Chile in order to obtain radial velocity observations of stars in the southern sky, to be used for the determination of the solar motion, a major area of Campbell’s research.
In 1923 Campbell entered another phase of his career by accepting appointment as president of the University of California. Although he retained the nominal directorship of the Lick Observatory, the nature of his publications changed in that he began to discuss problems of scientific organization and some problems of more popular scientific interest, along with his spectrographic work. His publications also demonstrated an interest in the history of astronomy. In failing health at the time of his retirement in 1930 and having recently lost the sight of one eye, Campbell returned with his wife to Mount Hamilton, planning to resume his scientific work. He was, however, invited to accept nomination for the presidency of the National Academy of Sciences, which position he assumed on 1 July 1931. During his term of office, 1931-1935, Campbell attempted to restore the preeminence of the National Academy of Sciences as an advisory agency to the government. His efforts were rewarded by the creation within the academy of the Government Relations and Science Advisory Committee. He must thus be viewed as a strong and successful exponent of the use of scientific advice by government at a time when this was not generally accepted practice.
In retirement he continued his interest in astronomical events, delivered an address in tribute to Simon Newcomb at the Hall of Fame at New York University in 1936, and published an obituary of Ambrose Swasey in 1937. In deteriorating health and fearing a total loss of vision, he did not wish to become a burden upon others and took his life on 14 June 1938.
Campbell’s early scientific career was in orbit computation. Using his own observations along with those of others, he gained that dedication to precision of observation and refinement of technique which is the mark of a great observational astronomer. At Lick Observatory, Campbell initially was introduced to spectroscopic observation through association with Keeler while a volunteer assistant in 1890. On joining the observatory’s permanent staff, he continued to work in this area; and although his equipment was not ideal and did not become truly satisfactory until the Mills spectrograph became fully operational in 1896, he made notable contributions in the observation of Nova Aurigae (1892), noting the changes in the spectrum from continuous to bright-line. He also observed the characteristic bright-band emission spectra of Wolf-Rayet stars and made the first observations of the variation in spectral intensity of the F line of hydrogen and of the green nebular lines. At the opposition of Mars in 1894 he observed its spectrum and concluded that the atmosphere of Mars was deficient in oxygen and water vapor and unable to support life. His observational results were not in accord with general belief, but Campbell vigorously defended them.
In 1909 he led an expedition to observe Mars from Mount Whitney, so as to minimize the absorption spectrum of the earth’s atmosphere. In 1910 he again observed Mars from Mount Hamilton, this time at quadrature, when the relative radial velocity could best be used to separate lines of Martian origin from those arising in the terrestrial atmosphere. His earlier findings were confirmed.
Membership
Member American Academy Arts and Sciences.
National Academy of Sciences
,
United States
1930
International Astronomical Union
,
France
1922 - 1925
American Association for the Advancement of Science
,
United States
1915
American Astronomical Society
,
United States
1922 - 1925
Personality
Campbell was a most careful observer and a designer of techniques of observation and of reduction, and he put forth his findings with confidence, irrespective of their accord with accepted theory. He did not, however, hesitate to repeat his observations if he felt this necessary.
Connections
Campbell was married in 1892 to Elizabeth Ballard Thompson. There were three sons of this marriage: Wallace, Douglas, and Kenneth.
Father:
Robert Wilson Campbell
Mother:
Harriet Welsh
Spouse:
Elizabeth Ballard Thompson
Son:
Wallace Campbell
Son:
Douglas Campbell
Son:
Kenneth Campbell
References
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers
The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers is a unique and valuable resource for historians and astronomers alike. The two volumes include approximately 1550 biographical sketches on astronomers from antiquity to modern times.