William Michael Herbert Greaves (10 September 1897 – 24 December 1955) was a British astronomer.
He is most noted for his work on stellar spectrophotometry.
Life
He was born in Barbados in the West Indies the son of Dr E. C. Greaves, a physician trained at the University of Edinburgh. William Greaves was educated first at Lodge School and Codrington College, both in Barbados then travelled to England to study at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated MA in 1919 and became a Fellow in 1922.
Career
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1921.
From 1924 until 1938 he was the chief assistant at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
He remained Astronomer Royal until 1955, and was Regius Professor of Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh for the same period. In 1943 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.., and the couple had a son, George Richard Herbert Greaves (1941-2008) who became Reader in Mathematics at Cardiff University.
Awards and honors
- Tyson Gold Medal for Astronomy.
- Awarded Smith's prize in 1921.