John Thomas Romney Robinson
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Rev. Dr. Thomas Romney Robinson (23 April 1792 - 28 February 1882) was an astronomer and physicist. He was the longtime director of the Armagh Astronomical Observatory, one of the chief astronomical observatories in the U.K. during the 19th century.
Robinson was born in Dublin. He was educated at Belfast Academy then continued his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and obtained a fellowship there in 1814 at age 22, and for some years was a deputy professor of natural philosophy (physics) at Trinity. Having been also confirmed as an Anglican priest while at Trinity, he obtained the church livings at Enniskillen and at Carrickmacross in the early 1820s. In 1823, now aged 30, he additionally gained the appointment of astronomer at the Armagh observatory.[1] From then on he always resided at the Armagh observatory, engaged in researches connected with astronomy and physics, until his death in 1882.
Robinson compiled a large catalog of stars, and published related papers in scientific journals. He received a Royal Medal in 1862 "for the Armagh catalogue of 5345 stars, deduced from observations made at the Armagh Observatory, from the years 1820 up to 1854; for his papers on the construction of astronomical instruments in the memoirs of the Astronomical Society, and his paper on electromagnets in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy."
He is also of note as the inventor of a device for measuring the speed of the wind, the Robinson anemometer (1846).
The crater Robinson on the Moon is named after him. His daughter married the physicist George Gabriel Stokes. Stokes frequently visited Robinson in Armagh in Robinson's later years.[2]
[edit] References and external links
- ^ "Directors of Armagh Observatory"
- ^ Details of Stokes's summer vacations are in the biography of Stokes by Stoke's daughter at Archive.org.
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