Mr John Mc Landsborough 1820-1900 of the exchange, Bradford exhibited a large equatorial telescope made by Thomas Cooke and Sons of York at the Yorkshire Exhibition at Leeds in June 1875. Unfortunately I do not know the size of this telescope.
The great refractor by Thomas Cooke and Sons oy York, which was shown at the International Exhibition of 1871 was sold by auction by Messrs Stevens of King Street, Covent Garden for about £750.
The instrument which had every modern appliance, and was one
of the most complete ever turned out by the celebrated instrument makers was of
10 inches clear aperture and was originally priced at £1,200, but owing to the
rise in wages and materials would now be charged much more. The purchaser was
Mr Henley, the telegraph engineer.
William Thomas Henley was a submarine cable maker in
Greenwich. He set up the Persian Gulf Cable which was 1,651 miles long. The
success of which allowed him to gain many more contracts.
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Despite what we have been hearing in the press regarding all the planets on view in the sky we are now approaching the very best time to look for the most elusive of the planets, Mercury. It’s the closest planet to the Sun which makes it difficult to locate.
On the nights t of March 7th and 8th look to the west after sunset, you will see the bright white dot of Venus you can’t miss that, look below Venus which will act as a fantastic guide and you will see another bright dot in the sky. It will look a little bit pinkish in colour. Its not as bright as Venus but if you are going to see Mercury in the evening sky this year this is your best chance.
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In February 1857 William Day of Carlisle who was headmaster at the Christchurch Boys School in Carlisle purchased a 4.25 inch portable equatorial telescope. As this was early 1857 it could still be a Thomas Cooke of York telescope rather than a Thomas Cooke & Sons of York, because it was around this time that the company changed its name.
He also in early 1858
purchased a smaller 3.5 inch telescope also from Cookes.
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The story of the
telescope begins in 1890, when the vicar of Eryholme, in Richmondshire North
Yorkshire the Reverend Walter Stewart, had it installed in his home, Ellcott
House, in Hurworth near Darlington.
It was "a 5-inch
equatorially-mounted refractor" built by T Cooke and Sons of York and
London.
It cost £374, and was
regarded by one and all as a very fine instrument , a vast amount of money at
the time.
In 1904, Mr Stewart,
who was born in Hurworth, was offered a new living in Longley, Gloucestershire.
Because Longley is a long way, the telescope had to remain, and so Mr Stewart
offered it to Darlington council for about £130.
It seemed natural to
place the telescope at the new technical college in Northgate, built in 1896,
but the college was still £2,163 in debt and the councillors were in no mood to
increase its overdraft for the sake of a telescope.
At the last minute, 29
of the town's leading citizens emptied out their pockets and scraped together
enough money to prevent the telescope being sent to the saleroom.
They formally
presented it to the town on November 8, 1904, and the following year it was set
up in the college's back yard.
But its view of the
skies was not good and it was planned to move it to the college roof for
"an uninterrupted view of the heavens".
But an astronomical
advisor reported: "If the telescope is to be regarded as a pastime then
that position would be satisfactory enough, but if a scientific use is to be
made of the instrument the position is absolutely unsuitable. The ordinary tram
and other forms of traffic set up a great deal of vibration."
North Lodge Park, next to the college, was
dismissed as a site because town centre smoke would have obscured the heavens,
so a site in South Park, next to the bowling green, was chosen.
The telescope was installed in December 1906 in its wooden, revolving observatory. Students of the skies had to pay 6d each, and inform the park superintendent if they intended to arrive after the park gates were locked for the night.
In February 1908,
Professor Dixon, one of the telescope's supervisors, even started an astronomy
class at the technical college to make use of the instrument.
But in October 1910,
the class was discontinued because it had no students.
In 1912, it was reported that "very little use is being made of the telescope", and by 1919 there was even less.
In January 1931, the
Darlington and Stockton Times reported: "The telescope is seldom used now;
in fact very few people know of its existence."
At the request of
Darlington Grammar School, which is now the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College,
the telescope was removed to playing fields off Abbey Road.
There, its 100 ft high
observatory was not popular with residents of Westbourne Grove.
In February 1951, the observatory was
broken into, but police recovered the stolen equipment a couple of months
later.
In 1979, Barry
Hetherington, then chairman of the Cleveland and Darlington Astronomical
Society, reported that the telescope needed a major overhaul.
In 1992, there was a
fire in the wooden observatory and a lump of melted metal was sold as scrap.
Six months later, someone seems to have realised that this lump was in fact the
remains of the Darlington Telescope.
Later that year, it
was reported that the base, the internal workings and the observatory wheels
had survived the blaze and were being kept in a metal container.
There was some vague talk about them one
day being included in a new, £50,000 telescope, but that that idea was quietly
eclipsed.
Join me, Martin Lunn MBE tonight and every Monday evening from 7.00 pm-9.00 pm on the Astronomy Show on Drystone Radio, probably the only regular astronomy show on any radio station in the country.
I will take my weekly look at the night sky and look at all
the latest news in astronomy. There will be the astronomical anniversaries this
week plus the latest news from the astronomical societies in the north of
England.
The Astronomy Show every Monday evening only on Drystone
Radio live online at www.drystoneradio.com
DAB radio in Bradford and East Lancashire, or 102 and 103.5 FM and can also be
heard later on the Drystone Radio Podcast.
Eddowes Bowman 1810-1869 was born in Nantwich in Cheshire and although he considered going into an engineering profession but his career took him into the field of classical literature.
He became chair of Greek and Latin Classics and Greek and Roman History in Manchester New College. It was also at this time that he developed an interest in natural science. This included astronomy.
In the early 1860s he purchased a 7.25 Cooke refractor in a
specially constructed observatory. I do not know if the observatory was built
by Cookes. Due to his many other interests it appears as if the telescope was
little used. He died at Victoria Park Manchester.
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The Moon is going to glide past the Seven Sisters or Pleiades and Jupiter between March 4th and March 6th . The Pleiades can be seen as a fuzzy patch in the sky. It is a cluster of stars. On a good clear night seven stars can be seen. I usually can only see 5 or 6 stars.
On March 4th the Moon will be just below the Seven Sisters while on the 5th it will be above the Seven Sisters and to the right of Jupiter. By March 6th the Moon will be above Jupiter
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On the 27th September 1892 about 15hrs 30 mins GMT comet Brooks (c1892) had a tail 10 degrees long, pointing at an angle of 280 degrees this was observed with his 4.5 inch Thomas Cooke telescope
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