Sydney Observatory and the 1877 assassination attempt on the government astronomer

[gary]

In a 31 Dec 2017 article at the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Hannam
provides some fascinating snippets of the history of the Sydney Observatory.

Hannam describes its role both in astronomical and meteorological record keeping.

Sydney's Observatory Hill has witnessed a few storms over the years, and not all of them were meteorological.

One involved an assassination attempt in 1877 against Henry Chamberlain Russell, the NSW government astronomer and meteorologist, who ran the site for decades.

Article here :-
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/we...14-h04p03.html

[xelasnave]

Thanks Gary.
Absolutely fascinating.
Alex

[xstream (John)]

Great read. Thank you Gary.

[bigjoe (JOSEPH)]

Thanks Gary ..remember looking at Mars as a kid in the big refractor there ..ultra clear with the Zeiss eyepiece but power only very low about 100x and disappointing otherwise.
bigjoe.

[ngcles]

Hi All,

I wrote a feature article for the March/April 2008 issue of Australian Sky & Telescope touching upon the sesquicentennial of Sydney Observatory. Though there was only a paragraph or two that touched on that quite singular individual Henry Chamberlain Russell, according to the research/reading I did on the subject, Russell was an aloof, patrician individual who did not suffer fools and was somewhat haughty in his treatment of those who occupied "lesser" stations of life than his own. He was however highly respected by his peers. It was this treatment of subordinates that drew eventual conflict.

Yes, it is true he was the intended victim of an attempt to murder via an improvised bomb. The alleged assailant was acquitted, though it is unclear upon what grounds. In a separate incident, he was also assaulted by a workman at the observatory in 1889.

A later example of his stubbornness was that upon his retirement in 1905, he refused point-blank to vacate the observatory building (remembering the building was back then, not only a workplace but a residence for the incumbent government astronomer and had been his home for decades) and resisted all attempts to extricate him (much to his successor's chagrin) until his demise in 1907 from kidney ailments.

A very, very capable scientist that was a pioneer in several aspects of astronomy but by all accounts, a very difficult man to deal with at times.

Best,

L.