George
Bishop (1785- 1861)
George
Bishop died on June 14th 1861 he had been born on August 21st 1785 in Leicester where he
made his fortune as a wine merchant, but his great passion in life was
astronomy. In 1836 in the grounds of his
home in South Villa in Regent`s Park, London he built an astronomical
observatory.
The
observatory was equipped with a 7 inch Dollond refractor. The Rev William
Rutter Dawes used the telescope from 1839-1844 until poor health forced him to
leave. In October 1844 John Russell Hind became the observatory`s astronomer
where he made many discoveries. Between 1847 and 1854 Hind discovered 10
asteroids from the observatory, they were, 7 Iris, 8 Flora, 12 Victoria, 14
Irene, 18 Melpomene, 19 Fortuna, 22 calliope, 23 Thalia, 27 Eutepe and 30
Urania. Another asteroid 29 Amphitrite
was discovered in 1854 by Albert Marth, Hind`s young assistant.
After the
death of George Bishop in 1861, the observatory dome and instruments were moved
to Twickenham in west London to avoid the more polluted skies of the capital.
The
observatory operated until 1877 when the instruments and library were donated
to Royal Observatory at Naples.
The original
Regent`s Park observatory no longer exists
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