[glenc (Glen)]

Sir John Herschel published the General Catalogue in 1864. It contained all the clusters and nebulae known at the time. The four men who found the most objects in the General Catalogue were William Herschel who found 2432 objects, John Herschel 1580, James Dunlop 269 and Heinrich Louis d'Arrest 93.

LIFE SKETCH OF DUNLOP (1793 – 1848)
The biographical information on James Dunlop’s life was primarily obtained from James Dunlop’s nephew, John Service. He wrote Thir Notandums ... to which is appended a Biographical Sketch of James Dunlop, Edinburgh, 1890.
(A painting of James Dunlop https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/james-dunlop-0)

1. EARLY LIFE IN SCOTLAND 1793 – 1821
James Dunlop was born at Dalry (34 km south-west of Glasgow, Scotland) on October 31, 1793. His father John was a handloom weaver. John and his wife Janet Boyle had seven children, James being the fourth child. In 1819 his father died after an eleven year illness and James left for Australia two years later. His mother, said to be a clever woman, died in 1830, three years after James returned to Scotland in 1827.
(Map of Dalry, Beith, Largs and Glasgow.https://maps.app.goo.gl/JNvEmKpqixoBFLJX8)

When James was fourteen years old he moved six kilometres to Beith where he lived with his father's twin brother, Robert, and worked for Mr Fauld in a thread factory. James was not well educated. His biographer, John Service notes, “He had been a short time at school in Dalry, and when he went to Beith, he attended a night-school in the Strand ... But, beyond these meagre opportunities for education, he received no scholastic training whatever ...” James had a “natural aptitude and love” for mechanics and “when he was seventeen years of age, he was constructing lathes and telescopes and casting reflectors for himself ...” He made a telescope four feet long and six or nine inches in diameter. The only help he received was from his 14 year old brother John, who sometimes held a candle for him.

James married his cousin Jean Service on June 25, 1816, they had no children. In 1818 James, aged 24, left his job as a warehouse foreman in Beith and returned to Dalry to become a handloom weaver like his father.

The Patrick family of Trearne introduced James to Sir Thomas Brisbane (1773-1860) in 1820, which led to Dunlop's trip to Australia and his three catalogues of 7385 stars, 629 clusters and nebulae and 253 double stars. Brisbane, a former soldier, was soon to become the sixth governor of NSW. He was interested in astronomy because of its value in navigation and time keeping. During his life Brisbane established three observatories; the first was built at Largs in 1808.
(The ruins of Brisbane’s Largs observatory. https://maps.app.goo.gl/P9BKcmUgQjkeF3gLA)

Brisbane was planning to build his second observatory in NSW and employed Dunlop to care for and repair the mechanical appliances and instruments. He also employed a German, Christian Carl Ludwig (Charles Stargard) Rümker, (1788-1862) as the astronomer and mathematician. Dunlop packed Brisbane's instruments and sailed from Leith, Edinburgh on March 7, 1821 bound for London.