Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/34

 20 HISTORY OF THE [1820-30 Before Colebrooke, however, before Sir W. Herschel, before even the Duke of Somerset, we had as effective President Mr. Daniel Moore, who was specially thanked for taking the Chair at the preliminary meetings. What manner of man was he ? He died in 1828 before it had become the custom to give many bio- graphical details of our deceased Fellows. We read in the Council Report of " our amiable and excellent trustee Mr. Daniel Moore, whose loss will be felt far beyond the limits of this body by many, as the privation of a benefactor, in whose ears the calls of distress never sounded in vain," and that is all : but it is much. A casual reference in one of Sir John Herschel's letters gives us almost the same picture. He is " our friend Moore, whose money burns in his pocket," and who might come to the rescue " if the low state of [the Society's] funds be talked of." It is but a glimpse we get, but a very pleasant glimpse. Such were the men who took the Chair at the early meetings, either actually or nominally. But there is no question that for real initiative the Society owes almost everything to two men, the Rev. William Pearson and Francis Baily. Probably the combination of the two was really necessary. The dreamer Pearson had long had the project vaguely in mind, but required the help of Baily, a man of affairs, to put it into practical shape. The incidence of Baily can be traced in his Appendix * to a Memoir on a new and certain Method of ascertaining the Figure of the Earth by means of Occultations of the Fixed Stars. By A. Cagnoli. With Notes and an Appendix by Francis Baily. London, 1819. 8vo. He therein (p. 29) strongly urges the formation of an ASTRONO- MICAL SOCIETY, with a library and a collection of observations, referring to Pingre's Annales Celestes : and that the scheme took shape within a year strongly suggests that this new and vigorous influence was the determining cause. But Dr. Pearson had had the idea as early as 1812, and it was he who ultimately assembled those interested at a friendly dinner ) in order to hatch out the project. The facts are given in two letters which were printed by De Morgan, and are bound up with some copies of the Monthly Notices (26), but not with all. It seems, therefore, desirable to reproduce them here : with the comment that (in spite of the the library of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. It is catalogued in the R.A.S. and Crawford libraries, but under Cagnoli, and in the former case with no cross-reference. f Until seeing the entry in the Diary of Sir John Herschel, I had always supposed that this dinner was on a date before January 12, and probably at Dr. Pearson's house ; but the facts seem consistent with the dinner being that at Freemason's Tavern, immediately preceding (or following) the meeting of January 12.
 * I am indebted to Dr. Dreyer for this reference, which he first found in