Page:History of the Royal Astronomical Society (1923).djvu/81

 1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 63 the cost of printing (about 30) was rather more than the Society could conveniently afford. Baily, therefore, liberally paid the whole cost of computing and printing for the year 1836. Airy then, in 1836 March, wrote to the Admiralty asking that this Transit Ephemeris might be prepared and printed at the public expense. As he bore the strongest testimony to the value of this publication in fixed observa- tories, where it saved a great deal of work, the Admiralty at once directed that it should in future form part of the Nautical Almanac. 3. The appointment of Stratford to superintend the Nautical Almanac obliged him to give up the Secretaryship of the Society, which he had held since 1826. It deserves to be remembered (and is recorded in the obituary notice of him in 1854) that during the five years he was Secretary he had no assistance whatever, so that " the whole routine of the business was conducted by him, from the correction of the proofs of the Memoirs to the folding of circulars." It was in view of his approaching retirement that the Council in 1830 November appointed Mr. James Epps to be Assistant Secretary from December 10, at a salary of 100 a year, and ordered him to attend the meetings of the Council. He was at that time fifty-seven years of age, and though he had not received a regular education, he is said to have acquired a good deal of knowledge of astronomy. He had published a couple of short papers in the Memoirs (vol. 4) on finding the errors of a transit instrument ; and three others were afterwards printed in vols. 6, 9, and 11 on similar subjects. He was also interested in rare, old books,* and was thus in every way well qualified for the post he was to fill. He held the office of Assistant Secretary till 1838 March, when he resigned and removed to Hartwell Observa- tory, where Dr. Lee had appointed him observer ; but he died in the following year. He was succeeded in the service of the Society by Mr. John Hartnup, formerly assistant at Lord Wrottesley's Observatory, and employed for some time at Greenwich. He was engaged at a salary of 80, and held the post till 1843 November, when he became Director of the new Liverpool Observatory. The growth of the library and many other considerations made it more and more urgent for the Society to find a permanent home in a suitable locality. They paid fifty guineas a year to the Medico-Chirurgical Society for the use of rooms in that Society's house, 57 Lincoln's Inn Fields. In 1830 February a Committee was appointed by the Council " to procure apartments." But they were not easy to find ; and it was therefore fortunate that an influential person came to the rescue. The Duke of Sussex (brother several rare ones in which Lee has written, " From Mr. Epps's collection."
 * Among books formerly belonging to Hartwell Observatory there are