Richard Anthony Proctor | |
|---|---|
 Richard A. Proctor | |
| Born | (1837-03-23)23 March 1837 |
| Died | 12 September 1888(1888-09-12) (aged 51) New York City |
| Nationality | English |
| Known for | Popular writings about astronomy Early maps ofMars |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
Richard Anthony ProctorFRAS (23 March 1837 – 12 September 1888) was an Englishastronomer. He is best remembered for having produced one of the earliest maps ofMars in 1867 from 27 drawings by the English observerWilliam Rutter Dawes. His map was later superseded by those ofGiovanni Schiaparelli andEugène Antoniadi and his nomenclature was dropped (for instance, his "Kaiser Sea" becameSyrtis Major Planum).
He used old drawings of Mars dating back to 1666 to try to determine thesidereal day of Mars. His final estimate, in 1873, was 24h 37m 22.713s, very close to the modern value of 24h 37m 22.663s.[1][2][3]
The craterProctor on Mars is named after him.
Richard Proctor's father died in 1850 and his mother attended to his education. He was sent toKing's College London and subsequently earned a scholarship atSt John's College,Cambridge. He graduated in 1860 as 23rd wrangler.[4]
Proctor then read for the bar, but turned toastronomy and authorship instead, and in 1865 published an article on theColours of Double Stars in theCornhill Magazine. His first bookSaturn and its System was published in the same year, at his own expense. This work contains an elaborate account of the phenomena presented by the planet; but although favourably received by astronomers, it had no great sale. He intended to follow it up with similar treatises onMars,Jupiter,Sun,Moon,comets andmeteors,stars, andnebulae, and had in fact commenced a monograph on Mars, when the failure of aNew Zealand bank deprived him of an independence which would have enabled him to carry out his scheme without anxiety as to its commercial success or failure.
Being thus obliged to depend upon his writings for the support of his family, and having learned by the fate of hisSaturn and its System that the general public are not attracted by works requiring arduous study, he cultivated a more popular style. He wrote for a number of periodicals; and although he has stated that he would at this time willingly have turned to stone-breaking on the roads, or any other form of hard and honest but unscientific labour, if a modest competence had been offered him in any such direction, he attained a high degree of popularity, and his numerous works had a wide influence in familiarising the public with the main facts of astronomy.
Proctor's earlier efforts were not always successful. HisHandbook of the Stars (1866) was refused by Messrs Longmans and Messrs Macmillan, but being privately printed, it sold fairly well. For hisHalf-Hours with the Telescope (1868), which eventually reached a 20th edition, he received originally £25 from Messrs Hardwick. Although teaching was uncongenial to him he took pupils in mathematics, and held for a time the position of mathematical coach for Woolwich and Sandhurst.
Proctor's literary standing meantime improved, and he became a regular contributor toThe Intellectual Observer,Chamber's Journal and thePopular Science Review. In 1870 appeared hisOther Worlds Than Ours,[5] in which he discussed the question of the plurality of worlds in the light of new facts. This was followed by a long series of popular treatises in rapid succession, amongst the more important of which areLight Science for Leisure Hours andThe Sun (1871);The Orbs around Us andEssays on Astronomy (1872);The Expanse of Heaven,The Moon andThe Borderland of Science (1873);The Universe and the Coming Transits andTransits of Venus (1874);Our Place among Infinities (1875);Myths and Marvels of Astronomy (1877);The Universe of Stars (1878);Flowers of the Sky (1879);The Poetry of Astronomy (1880);Easy Star Lessons andFamiliar Science Studies (1882);Mysteries of Time and Space (1883) - Digital Copy;"The Great Pyramid" (1883) - Digital Copy;The Universe of Suns (1884);The Seasons (1885);Other Suns than Ours andHalf-Hours with the Stars (1887).
In 1881 Proctor foundedKnowledge, a popular weekly magazine of science (converted into a monthly in 1885), which had a considerable circulation. In it he wrote on a great variety of subjects, including chess and whist.
Proctor was also the author of the articles on astronomy in theAmerican Cyclopaedia and the ninth edition of theEncyclopædia Britannica, and was well known as a popular lecturer on astronomy in England,America and Australia.
Proctor was elected a fellow of theRoyal Astronomical Society on 8 June 1866.[6] He became honorary secretary in 1872, and contributed eighty-three separate papers to itsMonthly Notices. Of these the more noteworthy dealt with the distribution of stars,star clusters and nebulae, and the construction of thesidereal universe. He was an expert in all that related to map-drawing, and published two star-atlases. A chart on anisographic projection, exhibiting all the stars contained in theBonner Durchmusterung, was designed to show the laws according to which the stars down to the 9–10th magnitude are distributed over the northern heavens. HisTheoretical Considerations respecting theCorona (Monthly Notices, xxxi. 184, 254) also deserve mention,[7][8] as well as his discussions of the rotation of Mars, by which be deduced its period with a probable error of 0.005. He also vigorously criticised the official arrangements for observing thetransits of Venus of 1874 and 1882. He was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1874.[9]
Proctor's largest and most ambitious work,Old and New Astronomy, left unfinished at his death, was completed byArthur Cowper Ranyard and published in 1892[10] with a second edition in 1895.[11] He settled in America some time after his second marriage in 1881, and died ofyellow fever at New York City on 12 September 1888. A monument was later erected in his memory.[12]Mary Proctor, his daughter by his first marriage, became an astronomer and a successful lecturer and writer. Proctor’s second wife, Sallie (1856-1941), was also active in astronomy.[13]
Works by or aboutRichard Anthony Proctor atWikisource
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Proctor, Richard Anthony".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 420–421.
