William Rutter Dawes (19 March 1799 – 15 February 1868) was an English astronomer.

Biography

Dawes was born at Christ's Hospital then in the City of London (it moved to Horsham, West Sussex in 1902), the son of William Dawes, also an astronomer, and Judith Rutter. He qualified as a doctor in 1825. On 29 October 1828 he was ordained pastor at an Independent chapel in Burscough Street, Ormskirk, Lancashire, formerly part of a silk factory. He set up his private observatory at his home, Hopefield House, built 1856-7 in Haddenham, Buckinghamshire. One of his telescopes, an eight-inch (200mm) aperture refractor by Cooke, survives at the Cambridge Observatory, now part of the Institute of Astronomy where it is known as the Thorrowgood Telescope.

thumb|A Chart of Mars Laid down on the Stereographic Projection by R A Proctor. From: Other Worlds Than Ours, 1896.

He made extensive drawings of Mars during its 1864 opposition. In 1867, Richard Anthony Proctor made a map of Mars based on these drawings. Proctor named two features after Dawes.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1830 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1865, for his astronomical work. Proposers for his Royal Society Fellowship included G B Airy and J F W Herschel.

Legacy

Dawes craters on the Moon and Dawes crater on Mars are named after him, as is a gap within Saturn's C Ring, formerly labelled 1.495 R<sub>S</sub>.

An optical phenomenon, the Dawes limit, is named after him.

Family

Dawes married twice. His first wife was Mary Scott née Egerton (1764–1840). They married on 13 January 1824 at Haddenham, Buckinghamshire. She was the widow of his tutor, Thomas Scott. She was the widow of Ormskirk solicitor John Welsby (1800–1839)

{| class="wikitable"

!colspan=2 | William Rutter Dawes'S grave, St Mary's Church, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire.

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| <poem><div style="text-align: center;">REV DR WILLIAM RUTTER DAWES FRAS FRS

BORN 19 MAR 1799 DIED 15 FEB 1868

ASTRONOMER

HE MARRIED TWO WIDOWS MRS THOMAS SCOTT AND MRS JOHN WELSBY AND SURVIVED THEM BOTH

HE BUILT HOPEFIELD IN 1857 AND LIVED THERE UNTIL HIS DEATH</div></poem> || |thumb

|}

Selected writings

References

Further reading

  • (Adapted from Sky & Telescope, July 1973, page 27)
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1855, 15, 148 - Awarding of RAS gold medal
  • Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1869, 29, 116 - Obituary
  • The Observatory, 1913, 36, 419 - Brief biography
  • McKim, R., Marriott, R. A., "Dawes' Observations Of Mars, 1864-65", Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol.98, no.6, p.294-300, October 1988.