Huggins, Sir William (1824-1910), astronomer.

1. Letter to an unnamed recipent, 12 April 1866; expecting the Astronomer Royal will give an oral statement on the influence of the tides upon the earth's rotation.

2. Letter to Dr. Angus, 26 October 1868; regarding Angus purchasing a telescope.

3. Letter to Dr. Hooker, October 1873.

4. Letter to Dear Mr. B., 23 October 1874; lantern slides to be exhibited in Liverpool.

5. Letter to Dr. Hooker, 11 February 1875.

6. Letter to Mr. Cooke, 8 March 1877; regarding the death of his dog.

7. Letter to Professor Young, 4 July 1887.

8. Letter to Mr. Knowles, 4 July 1891; regarding Sir David Gill, astronomer.

9. Letter to an unknown female recipient, n.d.

10. Autograph of William Huggins, on headed notepaper, n.d.

1866-1891

1 File

Purchased from Stevens, London, August 1930 (acc.63313), Glendining, London, January 1935 (acc.67974), Stevens, London, June 1931 (acc.68171), either from Desgranges, Paris, January 1936, or Glendining, London, c.1932 (acc.69293), Sotheby's, London, November 1931 (acc.75332), Stone, 1941 (acc.92292).

Sir William Huggins was an English astronomer who built an observatory at Tulse Hill, south London in 1856 and worked on spectrum analysis and its application in understanding the composition of stars. He devised the star spectroscope with the chemist William Miller (1817-1870) for which he won the Royal Society's Gold Medal in 1867. In 1865 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was their president from 1900-1906. He was president of the Royal Astronomical Society 1876-1878 and president of the British Association in 1891. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1897 and received the Order of Merit in 1902.