John Bird (astronomer)
John Bird (1709–1776), the mathematical instrument maker, was born at Bishop Auckland. He worked in London for Jonathan Sisson, and by 1745 he had his own business in the Strand. Bird was commissioned to make a brass quadrant 8 feet across for the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, where it is still preserved. Soon after, duplicates were ordered for France, Spain and Russia.
Bird supplied the astronomer James Bradley with further instruments of such quality that the commissioners of longitude paid him £500 (a huge sum) on condition that he take on a 7-year apprentice and produce in writing upon oath, a full account of his working methods. This was the origin of Bird's two treatises The Method of Dividing Mathematical Instruments (1767) and The Method of Constructing Mural Quadrants (1768). Both had a foreword from the astronomer-royal Nevil Maskelyne. When the Houses of Parliament burned down in 1834, the standard yards of 1758 and 1760, both constructed by Bird, were destroyed.
Bird, with his fellow County Durham savant William Emerson, makes an appearance in Mason and Dixon the novel by Thomas Pynchon.
Further reading
Bedini, Silvio (1970–1980). "Bird, John". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 140–141. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
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