Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
of long scientific voyages in the Atlantic. He was elected as Savilian
Professor at Oxford in 1704, having earlier failed to be elected Savilian
Professor of Astronomy. The election coincided with an increase in
his influence in scientific circles generally. Oxford awarded him a
Doctor in Laws in 1710 and three years later he was elected
Secretary of the Royal Society. In 1720 he reached the scientific zenith
for astronomers in being appointed Astronomer Royal.
His wife Mary (n´ e Tooke), whom he married in April 1682, died
in 1736 after a marriage of 54 years - a union of remarkable longevity
for that time - and she was buried in the church of St Margaret at Lee,
near the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. The couple had three chil-
dren: Edmond who predeceased his father by two years; Margaret who
died in the year following her father; and Katherine, who survived both
her father and her two husbands. Edmond Halley died on 16 January
1742 and given his stature, one might be forgiven for expecting that on
a visit to Westminster Abbey one could find his tomb alongside that of
other great astronomers, scientists and thinkers of the period, includ-
ing Newton. Instead Halley was buried at Lee beside his wife, and in
due course his two daughters were buried alongside in the same tomb.
In the nineteenth century the church was rebuilt and the plaque that
had covered the tomb was removed to Greenwich where it remains.
Only in 1986, some 244 years after his death, was a small memorial
placed to Halley in Westminster Abbey. Perhaps he needs no physical
memorial on Earth; after all he is commemorated in name by the
comet whose return he predicted.
Halley, like many men of science, turned his labours to a
variety of subjects. In his case, while astronomy was his major field
of enquiry, he also examined problems of navigation, the Earth's
magnetic field, barometric pressure and the structure of the atmo-
sphere (which he determined was layered), the distribution of trade
winds and monsoons, and man's lifespan. He even invented a diving
bell in 1691 in which he was lowered to a depth of 18 metres
(10 fathoms). When sitting on the bed of the River Thames he was
able to forget about the bubbling and heaving metropolis above, and
