William Rutter Dawes

Dawes was born at Christ's Hospital{{Cite web | url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0029//0000116.000.html |title = MNRAS..29 Page 116}} then in the City of London (it moved to Horsham, West Sussex in 1902),[https://www.chmuseum.org.uk/ Christ's Hospital Museum] Retrieved 15 October 2021 the son of William Dawes, also an astronomer, and Judith Rutter.{{cite book |title=The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers |last=Hockey |first=Thomas |date=2009 |publisher=Springer Publishing |isbn=978-0-387-31022-0 |accessdate=22 August 2012 |url=http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/58344.html}} He qualified as a doctor in 1825. On 29 October 1828 he was ordained pastor at an Independent chapel in Burscough Street, Ormskirk, Lancashire,Nightingale, Benjamin, Lancashire nonconformity, or, Sketches, historical & descriptive, of the Congregational and old Presbyterian churches in the county. John Heywood, 1890-1893, p[https://archive.org/details/lancashirenoncon04nighuoft/page/200/mode/2up 200-2] formerly part of a silk factory. A new chapel, in Chapel Street, was opened in 1834. Dawes resigned as pastor in December 1837 due to ill health. When, in 1843, the chapel got into financial difficulties due to the debt owing after its construction, Dawes came to their aid.

File:The Thorrowgood telescope - geograph.org.uk - 2358429.jpg

Dawes made extensive measurements of double stars as well as observations of planets. He was a friend of William Lassell. He was nicknamed "eagle eyed".Proctor, R A, "Canals on the Planet Mars", The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 14 April, 1882, p7, column 7. He set up his private observatory at his home, Hopefield House, built 1856-7Sharp, Steve, with Wellby, Michael, "Hopefield House, Station Rd and the Rev Dr WR Dawes", The Haddenham Chronicles, No 2, Autumn 2006, Haddenham Museum Trust, pp40-2 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.[https://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/about/thorrowgood.telescope Institute of Astronomy - Thorrowgood Telescope]

File:Proctor Richard Anthony Other Worlds Mars Chart 1896.jpg

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.

Proctor, R A, Other worlds than ours; the plurality of worlds studied under the light of recent scientific researches, 1896, [https://archive.org/details/otherworldsthano00proc_0/page/n115/mode/2up opp p105]

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.[https://catalogues.royalsociety.org/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=EC%2f1865%2f03 Dawes, William Rutter: certificate of election to the Royal Society] Proposers for his Royal Society Fellowship included G B Airy and J F W Herschel.

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1855.[https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/15/4/148/2604625 Address delivered by the President, G. B. Airy, Esq. F.R.S., Astronomer Royal, on presenting the Medal of the Society to the Rev. William Rutter Dawes]

Dawes[https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1430 Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Moon - Dawes - crater] craters on the Moon and Dawes[https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Feature/1431 Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Mars - Dawes - crater] crater on Mars are named after him, as is a gap within Saturn's C Ring,[https://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Rings#saturn Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature: Ring and Ring Gap Nomenclature - Saturn] formerly labelled 1.495 R_S.Nicholson, Philip D. et al, (October 2014) "Noncircular features in Saturn’s rings II: The C ring", Icarus, Volume 241, p383 ("8. Dawes gap and embedded ringlet")

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

Dawes married twice. His first wife was Mary Scott née Egerton (1764-1840). They married on 13 January 1824 at Haddenham, Buckinghamshire.Buckinghamshire Marriage Index, findmypast (subscription required) She was the widow of his tutor, Thomas Scott. On 28 July 1842 Dawes married Ann Welsby née Coupland (1805-1860).Marriott, R A, [https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/7337 Dawes, William Rutter (1799–1868)] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (via libraries) She was the widow of Ormskirk solicitor John Welsby (1800-1839) whom she had married on 16 January 1824.England Marriages 1538-1973, findmypast (subscription required)

• {{cite book | author = Dawes, William Rutter | title = The Stars in Six Maps, on the Gnomonic Projection | date = 1849 | publisher = C. Knight | bibcode = 1849ssmg.book.....D }}

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• {{cite book | author = Ashbrook, Joseph | title = The Astronomical Scrapbook | date = 1984 | publisher = Sky Publishing | location = Cambridge, Massachusetts | pages = 360–365 }} (Adapted from Sky & Telescope, July 1973, page 27)
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• {{cite DNB|author=Clerke, Agnes Mary|authorlink=Agnes Mary Clerke|wstitle=Dawes, William Rutter|volume=14|pages=217–218}}
• [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0015//0000148.000.html Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1855, 15, 148] - Awarding of RAS gold medal
• [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0029//0000116.000.html Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1869, 29, 116] - Obituary
• [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0036//0000419.000.html The Observatory, 1913, 36, 419] - Brief biography
• McKim, R., Marriott, R. A., "[https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/#abs/1988JBAA...98..294M/abstract Dawes' Observations Of Mars, 1864-65]", Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol.98, no.6, p.294-300, October 1988.

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Category:1799 births

Category:1868 deaths

Category:19th-century British astronomers

Category:Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society