Nevil Maskelyne was born in London
on the 6th of October, 1732. He came from a well off
family although his father died when he was twelve and his mother
died as well not long after. He was nonetheless able to study at the
Westminster School, receiving a strong education both during the
academic year and during breaks when he studied writing and math
under a tutor. Since the eclipse of 1748, he was fascinated with
astronomy and optics and studied math extensively in order to further
his understanding of these fields. His next level of education was
at Trinity College, Cambridge where he studied natural philosophy,
pneumatics, and hydrostatics. In addition to this schooling,
Maskelyne was ordained in 1755 and moved back to London to work.
In 1785, Maskelyne married Sophia
Rose of Cotterstock and had his only child, Margaret, the same year.
In London, Maskelyne became the
unofficial assistant to a Royal Astronomer, James Bradley, and helped
him to compute tables of refraction. In 1761, Maskelyne was sent by
Bradley to observe the transit of Venus on St. Helena. His trip was
unfortunately unsuccessful due to clouds and malfunctioning
instruments. Some sources say that he was able to salvage some
observational data from the trip and later used it to calculate the
Sun's distance with only 1% error. Although it is disputable whether
or not he recorded Venus' transit, which is among the rarest of
astronomical events, Maskelyne did perfect the lunar distance
measuring method created by Tobias Mayer and wrote a book titled The
British Mariner's Guide.
Maskelyne's
second voyage was to Barbados with the intention of discovering the
accuracy of a certain method of longitude measurement. He was
entrusted with this mission by the Board of Longitude who also asked
him to test a new chair aimed at making astronomical observations at
sea easier. At this point in his life, Maskelyne was already a royal
astronomer as he replaced Nathaniel Bliss as the 5th
Astronomer Royal after Bliss' death in 1765. From his voyage focused
on longitude, Maskelyne gathered enough information to not only
present his findings to the board, but also to write a book two years
later, Nautical Almanac.
One innovation
Maskelyne receives credit for is the creation of “Requisite Tables”
which eliminate parallax, used for calculations. Today, Maskelyne's
navigational aides are still used, proving his brilliance and
phenomenal work in the field of astronomy.
In 1774,
Maskelyne attempted to calculate the density of the Earth using the
plumb line produced by a mountain in Scotland. His results were
close to the accepted standard today, a remarkable feat for those
times.
In
addition to his work regarding longitude, Maskelyne studied the
latitude measurements made by Mason and Dixon in Maryland and
Pennsylvania and the latitude line in Greenwich. He used
triangulation to calculate these values himself and was included in
the book Elements of Astronomy by
Samuel Vince for his work.
Some
of Maskelyne's lesser known works include A Proposal for
Discovering the Annual Parallax of Sirius
and his work involving time. The proposal was his first published
work and he was able to divide the measurement of time into tenths pf
a second for the first time. He has been portrayed in a television
episode based on a book about him titled Longitude: The
True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific
Problem of His Time. Also, he
has had a lunar crater and an island in Malekule named after him to
commemorate his advancements.
Maskelyne died
at the age of 79 in 1811. This was quite a long life for someone of
this time and his daughter only outlived him by six years. His
colleagues said he was always friendly and like a brother to all.
Although he did not leave behind any instruments to the Royal
Observatory, he still left a legacy of detailed calculations and very
important publications which would be used for many years to come.
