Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/338

 and in 1888 he received the Prix Janssen of the Institute of France, and from the National Academy of Sciences of Washington he obtained the Draper gold medal in 1901. His private means were not large, and in 1890 a civil list pension of 150Z. a year was granted him. In 1891 he was president of the British Association meeting at Cardiff. His address was an eloquent statement of recent progress in astronomy, chiefly of the discoveries which had been made since 1860, owing to the introduction into the observatory of the spectroscope and the dry plate, and he spoke of the quite recent application of photography to star-charting. In 1897, at the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria, Huggins was created a K.C.B., and in 1902 he was one of the original members of the Order of Merit. In 1900 he was chosen president of the Royal Society, and held the office till 1906. In that capacity he delivered four annual addresses, two on the 'Importance of Science as a Part of General Education,' and two on the 'Duty of the Royal Society to the Specialised Scientific Societies, and secondly on its Duty as Adviser to the State.' The four addresses were collected with some notes on the history of the Royal Society in 'The Royal Society, or Science in the State and in the Schools' (1906).

Huggins continued his spectroscopic researches almost to his death. He made especially important observations of the new star in the constellation of Auriga in 1892 (Proc. Roy. Soc. 1892, 1. 465 ; 1892, li. 487 ; 1893, liv. 30). His final conclusion was that the cause of the Nova was the casual near approach of two bodies previously possessing considerable velocities in space ; that enormous forces of a tidal nature were set at work, and caused an outburst of hot matter, and that the phenomenon had some analogy to the periodic outbursts on the sun, but on a grander scale (cf. lecture at Royal Institution on 13 May 1892, and Fortnightly Review for June). In 1895 he examined the helium line in the spectrum of the sun, which after a first unsuccessful attempt (Chemical News, No. 1855) he found to be double, and so procured additional evidence that helium is a terrestrial element. In 1897 he did much to settle the vexed question in solar physics regarding the extent and the presence of calcium in the sun (cf. Proc. 1897, lxi. 433). The discovery of radium by Professor and Madame Curie in 1903 again led to laboratory experiments by Huggins with the spectroscope (Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1903, lxxii. 196 ; 1903, lxxii. 409 ; 1905, lxxvii. 130).

Through life Huggins occasionally pursued scientific inquiries outside the range of astronomy. In a paper on 'Prismatic Examination of Microscopic Objects' he described the application for the first time of the spectroscope to the microscope (Quarterly Journal Microsc. Soc. 1865). In 1883 he wrote 'On the Function of the Sound Post, and on the Proportional Thickness of the Strings of the Violin' (Proc. Roy. Soc. 1883, xxxv. 241). In his later years Huggins with the co-operation of Lady Huggins collected into two volumes the results of his work. Volume i. entitled 'An Atlas of Representative stellar Spectra from λ 4870 to λ 3300,' comprises a discussion of the evolutional order of the stars and the interpretation of the spectra, preceded by a short history of the observatory and its work (1900). The second volume, 'The Scientific Papers of Sir William Huggins' (1909), contains the complete set of his contributions to scientific literature, in most cases verbatim, and with some additions.

At the end of 1908 Huggins found it necessary, owing to advancing years, to give up astronomical work, and the instruments provided in 1870 by the Royal Society reverted to that body, who gave them to the syndicate of the Cambridge University Observatory. On a brass tablet fixed in 'the Huggins dome' of that observatory the following words were inscribed : '1870-1908. These telescopes were used by Sir William Huggins and Lady Huggins in their observatory at Tulse Hill in researches which formed the foundation of the Science of Astrophysics.' He died in London on 12 May 1910 rather suddenly, following a surgical operation, and, according to his wish, his body was cremated at Colder's Green, where his ashes remain. In 1875 Huggins married Margaret Lindsay, daughter of John M. Murray of Dublin, who survived him. He had no children. In his wife Huggins found a devoted and helpful coadjutor, and her services to astronomy were recognised by the Royal Astronomical Society in 1901, when she and Agnes Mary Gierke [q. v. Suppl. II] were chosen honorary members of that society.

Huggins was a representative of the Royal Society on the Board of Visitors of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1898 until his death, and served in a like capacity at the University Observatory at