Arthur Robert Hinks

“ The site at Port Louis was unsuitable for a meteorological observatory, and with the support of Sir E. Sabine he was able to obtain the erection of a new station at Pamplemousses—a site unhappily marshy and fever-stricken. Here the foundation stone of the Royal Alfred Observatory was laid in 1870 by the Duke of Edinburgh. The principal work of the observatory was as before the study of the movement of storms, but from 1880 photographs of the solar surface have been taken daily to supplement the series made at Greenwich and Dehra Dun for a continuous record of the number of spots on the sun. ”

“ WILSON, WILLIAM EDWARD (1851–1908) , astronomer and physicist, born at Belfast on 19 July 1851, was only son of John Wilson, of Daramona, Streete, co. Westmeath, by his wife Frances Patience, daughter of the Rev. Edward Nangle. He was educated privately, and showed great interest in astronomy while still a boy. In 1870 he joined the British party under Huggins which went to Oran in Algeria to observe the total eclipse of the sun in that year, and on his return he set up a private observatory on his father's estate at Daramona, equipped with a twelve-inch refractor by Grubb. ”

“ Russell's first great service to astronomy was the organisation of the Australian observations of the transit of Venus in 1874. He equipped four parties, and prepared the account of the whole work which appeared in 1892. ”