The 1881 BA meeting in York with Thomas Cooke & Sons and the Middlesbrough meteorite

Messrs Thomas Cooke and Sons of York had a display of scientific instruments for the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. It was the 50th anniversary meeting in York. The first was held in York in 1831. 

Cookes had on display an achromatic telescope OG of 15.5 inches in a brass cell. In addition, there was a transit instrument and a large fixed equatorial telescope for the Spanish Transit of Venus expedition in 1882. 

There was also an electrically controlled chronograph for recording astronomical observations. In addition, a solar spectroscope with 5 prisms and double ray reversion equal to 20 prisms. 

Astronomical Yorkshire was represented at the meeting with the Middlesbrough meteorite which had fallen on March 14^th, 1881. Today we know it is one of the most important meteorites on Earth and is the textbook example of an oriented meteorite. This means that only one face of the meteor was burned upon entry into the Earth’s atmosphere making the meteorite dome shaped.

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