Mike Dryland
Volunteer, Royal Observatory Greenwich
I give talks and tours for visitors around the Royal Observatory. At present we have a team of seven experienced and enthusiastic volunteer tour guides who offer free public tours almost every weekday (usually at 2.30pm). We also provide tours by appointment for visiting groups, and can help out with more specialist visits when the curators aren’t available. I’m retired from industry and I’ve been giving ROG tours for about six years now. I spend about two days a week at the Observatory.
I also help to organise the Flamsteed Astronomy Society. The Flamsteed, as it’s known, is an amateur astronomy society at the ROG. It has about 120 members of all levels of interest and experience in astronomy – many are beginners. Volunteers from the Society make a big contribution to activities at the ROG, such as running public ‘Spotting Sunspots’ sessions with the solar telescopes, assisting at open evenings, and helping visitors to watch eclipses safely.
My favourite subject to talk about
My favourite characters in the story of the ROG would have to be Edmond Halley (of comet fame) and John Harrison, inventor of the world’s first accurate marine timekeeper – quite different personalities but both so very important to science, technology, and sea-faring in this country. They each worked, in two different ways, to give mariners at sea the means to find longitude, their position on the ocean east or west of Greenwich.
Edmond Halley – wealthy young ‘astro-brat’ and all-round good egg – is mainly remembered for his work on comets, but he also accomplished much in other fields of science. Halley became second Astronomer Royal at Greenwich in 1720 and his legacy can be seen in items on display all over the ROG.
John Harrison was an uneducated carpenter, self-taught clock-making genius, and grumpy obsessive perfectionist. He spent over 30 years developing his series of brilliant marine clocks (later called ‘chronometers’) until with the fourth, ‘H4’, he felt able to claim the Government’s Longitude Prize of £20,000 (about £6 million in modern values). He then fought almost the rest of his life, about 10 years, to receive the full £20,000 which he had been refused, but felt was his rightful due. Harrison’s original sea-clocks H1, H2, H3 and H4, are the crown jewels in the ROG’s displays, not to be missed on any visit to Greenwich.
My recommended books and links
Books
For excellent introductions to Halley and Harrison I recommend the little NMM books 'Harrison' by Jonathan Betts (enlarged and revised 2007), and 'The Astronomers Royal' by Emily Winterburn (2003).
To dig deeper into the history of astronomy and the ROG, try to find 'The Cambridge Concise (or Illustrated) History of Astronomy' edited by Michael Hoskin (CUP), and Derek Howse's 'Greenwich Time and the Longitude'.
Online
To find out more about the Flamsteed Astronomy Society at the ROG, see:
To arrange a volunteer guided tour of the ROG please contact us, and if you’re interested in volunteering at the NMM, go to the Museum’s volunteering pages or call the HR Department on 020 8312 8500.