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Greenwich Hoy! Nevil Maskelyne – The Seaman’s Astronomer by Derek Howse,
Cambridge UP, pp 280, Pounds sterling 40 hbk

AN acquaintance of mine told me that for him the name Maskelyne conjured
up the noted 19th- and 20th-century family of stage magicians. True, there
seems to have been a possible family connection between them and the Reverend
Nevil Maskelyne, but there all similarity ends. As Derek Howse’s excellent
and detailed biography shows us, the astronomer Maskelyne was no magician
but an energetic scientist, whose appointment as Astronomer Royal in 1765
led to the revitalisation of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich as an astronomical
centre.

Housed in Christopher Wren’s beautiful building, designed ‘for the Observators’
habitation and a little for pompe’, Maskelyne took to heart the royal commission
to ‘perfect navigation’, something which was already engaging his attention.

This biography is essentially an account of Maskelyne’s career, and
considers in detail all that he achieved, in particular the deliberations
and decisions of the Board of Longitude, in which Maskelyne played so central
and so controversial a part; these Howse handles with masterly detachment.
Though his book is sympathetic to Maskelyne – and why not, since every biographer
worth his salt must have at least some empathy for their subject – Howse
has gone out of his way to examine every possible piece of evidence to arrive
at an assessment that should lay to rest criticisms of Maskelyne’s unfairness
to John Harrison, inventor of the marine chronometer. He makes it evident
that though Harrison was somewhat shabbily treated by the Board, this was
not due to malice from the Astronomer Royal, even though Maskelyne certainly
believed that it was necessary to make astronomical observations in addition
to and in spite of the marine chronometer. But that was prudent, and Maskelyne’s
epoch-making work in producing the Nautical Almanac to make the task more
practicable from the mariner’s point of view is handled here in masterly
style.

Lest the reader be left with the impression that the fifth Astronomer
Royal’s time was spent entirely on administration and navigational astronomy,
Howse gives us a good account of Maskelyne’s aptitude for pure research
by detailing the successful attempt to measure the mass of the Earth by
noting the deflection of a plumb line by Mount Schiehallion in Scotland.

Though Maskelyne’s family affairs are mentioned, and the book includes
a reproduction of a delightful watercolour of Flamsteed House painted by
his daughter, readers who hope for any deep insight into his private life
will be disappointed; Nevil Maskelyne seems to have been a private man.
With its excellent appendices and lively comments, this thorough-going scientific
biography is well written. It is obviously going to become a standard text.
Perhaps someone in their wisdom will send a copy to the editor of the New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians so that he can see that Maskelyne’s
contemporary, the musician turned astronomer William Herschel, never was
Astronomer Royal as his Dictionary of Music unfortunately assures us.

Colin Ronan is an astronomer and historian of science, at the Needham
Research Institute, Cambridge.