Richard Towneley
Encyclopedia
Richard Towneley was an English
mathematician
and astronomer
from Towneley near Burnley
, Lancashire
. He was one of a group of seventeenth century astronomers in the north of England, which included Jeremiah Horrocks
, William Crabtree
and William Gascoigne
, the pioneer astronomers who laid the groundwork for research astronomy in the UK. An investigation carried out with the physician Henry Power
, followed by correspondence with Robert Boyle
, showed the relationship between the pressure and volume of gas in a closed system and led to the formulation of Boyle's Law
, or as Boyle named it, Mr. Towneley's hypothesis. He introduced John Flamsteed
to the micrometer and designed the movement for the clocks used in the Greenwich Observatory.
, in Lincolnshire
, on 10 October 1629. His father was Charles Towneley (1600–1644) and his mother before marriage was Mary Trapppes (1599–1690). He had three brothers and three sisters. Towneley came from a Catholic family which stoutly refused to conform to the Protestant Church and was thus excluded both from public office and from English universities. He is thought to have been educated at one of the English colleges in the Low Countries
as his younger brothers are both known to have studied at the English College, Douai
in France
. His interests included mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy. His father, Charles, was killed at the battle of Marston Moor in 1644.The civil war had been disastrous for the Towneley family and their Lancashire estates were confiscated by Parliamentary sequestrators. Richard married Mary Paston of Barningham, Norfolk and fathered four sons and four daughters. Although the date of their marriage is not recorded their first son Clement, was born in 1654. By 1653 the Lancashire lands were regained, but the Nocton estate
in Lincolnshire had to be sold in 1661 to pay outstanding debts.
(1623–1668), of Halifax, was both the Towneley family's physician and a friend who shared Towneley's enthusiasm for experimentation. On 27 April 1661, they used a barometer, of the type invented by Evangelista Torricelli
in 1643, to measure the pressure of air at different altitudes on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. As a result, they recognised a relation between the density of air and its pressure. Power eventually published the results in his book Experimental Philosophy in 1663 but an early draft was seen by Robert Boyle
in 1661 and it seems Towneley also discussed the experiments with Boyle when he visited London in the winter of 1661-62. Later in 1662, Boyle was able to publish what is now known as Boyle's Law
, but what he referred to as Mr Towneley's hypothesis.
Towneley published little of his own work but in May 1667 he sent a letter to the Royal Society touching the invention of dividing a foot into many thousand parts for mathematical purposes. Adrien Auzout
had claimed a French first in inventing the micrometer. Towneley wrote to point out that Auzout was not the first person to have developed such a device. The English astronomer William Gascoigne
had developed a micrometer before the Civil War. Towneley had produced an improved version of that micrometer and was using it in Lancashire. The Royal Society showed great interest in Towneley’s micrometer and he sent them one made in Lancashire by one of his tenants. Robert Hooke
reported on it in November of the same year as A description of an instrument for dividing a foot into many thousand parts, and thereby measuring the diameter of planets to a great exactness with an illustration, reproduced here.
During the winter of 1664-5, the skies of the northern hemisphere were dominated by a brilliant comet
, which was the most conspicuous since that of 1618. When Hooke made his first observations of the comet of 1664, he devised his own method of computing the angular diameter of the nucleus by comparing it with the apparent diameter of a weather vane support on distant building and measuring the distance between the telescope and the weather vane. Accurate angular measurements were of great importance to the astronomers of the time and Hooke realised he needed a precise instrument for this purpose. His problem was solved in 1667, when he saw Richard Towneley's micrometer, which was based on a prototype of 1640 invented by William Gascoigne. This instrument used a pair of fine-pitched screws to move two pointers in the focal plane of a Keplerian telescope. By enclosing the object to be measured between the pointers, its angular diameter could be computed to within a few arc seconds, providing the observer knew the exact focal length
of the telescope and the pitch of the screw which moved the pointers. Hooke published an engraving of the instrument to accompany Towneley's description in 1667. Its principle was to lie at the heart of astronomical measurement down to the twentieth century.
.
In 1970, Derek Howse brought to more general attention a collection of some seventy letters written between 1673 and 1688 by John Flamsteed
, the first Astronomer Royal, to Towneley. This collection of letters was acquired by the Royal Society in 1891. Professor Eric G. Forbes (1933–1984) recognised that a large amount of Flamsteed's correspondence had survived and began to collect and collate copies. This important work was continued after his death and was published from 1995. The Flamsteed correspondence explains how Towneley and Flamsteed began a correspondence that provides a unique insight into the early years of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
Flamsteed's first regular correspondent was John Collins
(1625–1683), who corresponded extensively with many mathematicians including Towneley. From their correspondence it appears Flamsteed visited London in June 1670, when Jonas Moore
(1617–1679) gave him the micrometer illustrated by Hooke in 1667. Both Collins and Moore advised Flamsteed to contact Towneley in order to make best use of the micrometer and Flamsteed first wrote to Towneley on 24 January 1671.
Flamsteed first visited Towneley Hall in 1671 to use the library there. Much later, when writing to William Molyneux
(1656–1698), Flamsteed recorded how Christopher Towneley (1604–1674) and Moore had collected the papers of Gascoigne, along with some of Horrox and Cabtree. These eventually went into the library at Towneley. Flamsteed claimed that reading Gascoigne's papers in less than two hours provided him with the foundations for his understanding of optics. He returned for a longer stay in September 1672 to make measurements, together with Towneley, of the conjunction of the planet Mars with fixed stars with the intention of estimating the size of the solar system. Due to adverse weather conditions, Flamsteed only achieved his objective when he returned to Derbyshire later the same week.
, William Crabtree
, William Gascoigne
and John Stephenson, and collected their papers. As an astronomer Towneley carried on the tradition of observation, that had been established in the north of England by Horrocks, Crabtree and Gascoigne based on the work of Johannes Kepler
.
Towneley's main astronomical work was measuring eclipses of the moons of Jupiter and Flamsteed made copies of Towneley's results taken between 9 September 1665 and 21 September 1672. Flamsteed's first task as Astronomer Royal was to continue Towneley's work on the moons of Jupiter. The same work was also underway at the Observatoire de Paris and, in 1683, Flamsteed recorded a catalogue of eclipses of Jupiter's satellites for the following year based on communication from, amongst others, Mr Towneley. This was at the time, the best method of determining longitude and, although unsuited for use at sea, was successful in determining the true longitude of remote coasts for the correction of charts.
A regular topic of the Flamsteed letters was the weather and how clouds had prevented measurement. In this respect, Towneley had two particular pieces of luck with weather in Lancashire. The first concerned a solar eclipse on 1 June 1676. The new Observatory at Greenwich was nearing completion and it was decided that this eclipse was a fitting occasion for the inaugural observations. The King had said he would like to be present. The day turned out to be cloudy at Greenwich and there was no Royal presence. Flamsteed was still able to report the event using the data recorded in Lancashire by Towneley. The second event concerned a transit of Mercury
on 28 October 1677. In Lancashire, Towneley was able to observe the sun through "flying clouds" during the last part of the event and was able to time Mercury's exit. Neither Greenwich nor Paris were so lucky as clouds covered most of Europe. There was only one other European report of Mercury's exit, from Avignon, but Edmund Halley much further south on St Helena was able to record the entire event.
for this purpose and two astronomical clocks were commissioned to his design from the clockmaker Thomas Tompion
and installed at the Greenwich Observatory. The clocks were paid for by Sir Jonas Moore
, Surveyor General of the King's Ordnance and a friend of Towneley. Towneley had recognised that the second hand of pendulum clocks, using an anchor escapement
, jerked backward due to recoil. Towneley's design eliminated the recoil and was the first of a kind that came to be known as a deadbeat escapement. The clocks were installed on 7 July 1676.
Flamsteed wrote often to Towneley about the clocks, which were made to run for a year between windings. It proved difficult to keep both clocks running for a whole year and, in January 1678, Tompion replaced the original escapement with one of his own design. The clocks eventually went for four years without stopping and Flamsteed was able to prove to his own satisfaction that the Earth rotated at a constant speed. [Although Towneley and Tompion could be considered the first people to attempt to make a deadbeat escapement, it was only in about 1715 that George Graham (clockmaker)
created one that was truly successful.]
appears to have taken up Towneley's challenge and they jointly published the rainfall measurements for Towneley and Upminster
in Essex for the years 1697 to 1704.
A local historian has suggested that Towneley was possibly prompted to maintain rainfall records in support of lime
hushing
activities on his land, however there is no hard evidence to support this conjecture. Rather there is evidence that Towneley had already expressed interest in measuring rainfall across different parts of England before 1677. In July 1676, Flamsteed promised Towneley he would take note of rainfall at Greenwich and expressed his opinion that "beyond Trent it is much more rainy than here". Flamsteed went as far as placing a rain gauge on an outhouse of the Observatory in 1677 but he never reported any measurements.
Towneley had a close friendship with the Belgian mathematician, François Walther de Sluze
,
He also designed and built a carriage that passed smoothly over rough roads.
A collection of his remaining scientific papers are now in the Bodleian Library
in 1685 the Catholics were again allowed to take part in public life and Richard Towneley became a Justice of the Peace
. After 1688, this brief respite for English Catholics ended, the King had to flee the country and in February 1689 he was replaced by his daughter Mary
and her Protestant husband William of Orange
. In 1690, Richard and his son Charles were implicated in plots to secure the return of King James II and from this time on the family were noted for their Jacobite
sympathies.
His mother Mary died in 1690 at the age of 91.
Richard Towneley died at York
on 22 January 1707.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
and astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
from Towneley near Burnley
Burnley
Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
. He was one of a group of seventeenth century astronomers in the north of England, which included Jeremiah Horrocks
Jeremiah Horrocks
Jeremiah Horrocks , sometimes given as Jeremiah Horrox , was an English astronomer who was the only person to predict, and one of only two people to observe and record, the transit of Venus of 1639.- Life and work :Horrocks was born in Lower Lodge, in...
, William Crabtree
William Crabtree
William Crabtree was an astronomer, mathematician, and merchant from Broughton, then a township near Manchester, which is now part of Salford, Greater Manchester, England...
and William Gascoigne
William Gascoigne (scientist)
William Gascoigne was an English astronomer, mathematician and maker of scientific instruments from Middleton near Leeds who invented the micrometer...
, the pioneer astronomers who laid the groundwork for research astronomy in the UK. An investigation carried out with the physician Henry Power
Henry Power
Henry Power was an English physician and experimenter, one of the first elected Fellows of the Royal Society.-Life:He matriculated as a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1641, and graduated B.A. in 1644. He became a regular correspondent of Sir Thomas Browne on scientific subjects. He...
, followed by correspondence with Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
, showed the relationship between the pressure and volume of gas in a closed system and led to the formulation of Boyle's Law
Boyle's law
Boyle's law is one of many gas laws and a special case of the ideal gas law. Boyle's law describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system...
, or as Boyle named it, Mr. Towneley's hypothesis. He introduced John Flamsteed
John Flamsteed
Sir John Flamsteed FRS was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. He catalogued over 3000 stars.- Life :Flamsteed was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, the only son of Stephen Flamsteed...
to the micrometer and designed the movement for the clocks used in the Greenwich Observatory.
Early life
Townley was born at NoctonNocton
Nocton is a village south of Lincoln in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. To the east of the village is Nocton Fen, and a small area known locally as Wasps Nest....
, in Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...
, on 10 October 1629. His father was Charles Towneley (1600–1644) and his mother before marriage was Mary Trapppes (1599–1690). He had three brothers and three sisters. Towneley came from a Catholic family which stoutly refused to conform to the Protestant Church and was thus excluded both from public office and from English universities. He is thought to have been educated at one of the English colleges in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
as his younger brothers are both known to have studied at the English College, Douai
English College, Douai
The English College, Douai was a Catholic seminary associated with the University of Douai . It was established in about 1561, and was suppressed in 1793...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. His interests included mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy. His father, Charles, was killed at the battle of Marston Moor in 1644.The civil war had been disastrous for the Towneley family and their Lancashire estates were confiscated by Parliamentary sequestrators. Richard married Mary Paston of Barningham, Norfolk and fathered four sons and four daughters. Although the date of their marriage is not recorded their first son Clement, was born in 1654. By 1653 the Lancashire lands were regained, but the Nocton estate
Nocton Hall
Nocton Hall is a historic listed building in the village of Nocton, in Lincolnshire, England. Originally constructed for the Ellys family, it burnt down in 1834 and was rebuilt in 1841 for the first Earl of Ripon, who lived at the steward's house in Nocton while the house was being built...
in Lincolnshire had to be sold in 1661 to pay outstanding debts.
Boyle's law
The income from the family estate meant that Towneley had no need to take any other employment. He devoted himself to the study of mathematics and natural philosophy, leaving the management of his estates to his younger brother Charles Towneley (1631–1712). Henry PowerHenry Power
Henry Power was an English physician and experimenter, one of the first elected Fellows of the Royal Society.-Life:He matriculated as a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1641, and graduated B.A. in 1644. He became a regular correspondent of Sir Thomas Browne on scientific subjects. He...
(1623–1668), of Halifax, was both the Towneley family's physician and a friend who shared Towneley's enthusiasm for experimentation. On 27 April 1661, they used a barometer, of the type invented by Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli was an Italian physicist and mathematician, best known for his invention of the barometer.-Biography:Evangelista Torricelli was born in Faenza, part of the Papal States...
in 1643, to measure the pressure of air at different altitudes on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. As a result, they recognised a relation between the density of air and its pressure. Power eventually published the results in his book Experimental Philosophy in 1663 but an early draft was seen by Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
in 1661 and it seems Towneley also discussed the experiments with Boyle when he visited London in the winter of 1661-62. Later in 1662, Boyle was able to publish what is now known as Boyle's Law
Boyle's law
Boyle's law is one of many gas laws and a special case of the ideal gas law. Boyle's law describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system...
, but what he referred to as Mr Towneley's hypothesis.
Gascoigne's micrometer
Adrien Auzout
Adrien Auzout was a French astronomer.He was born in Rouen, France, the son of a clerk in the court of Rouen. His educational background is unknown. In 1664–1665 he made observations of comets, and argued in favor of their following elliptical or parabolic orbits...
had claimed a French first in inventing the micrometer. Towneley wrote to point out that Auzout was not the first person to have developed such a device. The English astronomer William Gascoigne
William Gascoigne
Sir William Gascoigne Kt. was Chief Justice of England during the reign of King Henry IV. Sir William Gascoigne was born in Gawthorpe W-Riding, Yorks. In 1369, William married Elizabeth de Mowbray...
had developed a micrometer before the Civil War. Towneley had produced an improved version of that micrometer and was using it in Lancashire. The Royal Society showed great interest in Towneley’s micrometer and he sent them one made in Lancashire by one of his tenants. Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...
reported on it in November of the same year as A description of an instrument for dividing a foot into many thousand parts, and thereby measuring the diameter of planets to a great exactness with an illustration, reproduced here.
During the winter of 1664-5, the skies of the northern hemisphere were dominated by a brilliant comet
Comet
A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...
, which was the most conspicuous since that of 1618. When Hooke made his first observations of the comet of 1664, he devised his own method of computing the angular diameter of the nucleus by comparing it with the apparent diameter of a weather vane support on distant building and measuring the distance between the telescope and the weather vane. Accurate angular measurements were of great importance to the astronomers of the time and Hooke realised he needed a precise instrument for this purpose. His problem was solved in 1667, when he saw Richard Towneley's micrometer, which was based on a prototype of 1640 invented by William Gascoigne. This instrument used a pair of fine-pitched screws to move two pointers in the focal plane of a Keplerian telescope. By enclosing the object to be measured between the pointers, its angular diameter could be computed to within a few arc seconds, providing the observer knew the exact focal length
Focal length
The focal length of an optical system is a measure of how strongly the system converges or diverges light. For an optical system in air, it is the distance over which initially collimated rays are brought to a focus...
of the telescope and the pitch of the screw which moved the pointers. Hooke published an engraving of the instrument to accompany Towneley's description in 1667. Its principle was to lie at the heart of astronomical measurement down to the twentieth century.
Flamsteed's correspondence
As late as 1965, the historian Charles Webster was able to describe Towneley as "this mysterious figure of seventeenth century science" due to the fact that information about him was scattered through many works. Only one complete piece of work by Towneley survives, titled "Short Considerations uppon Mr. Hookes Attempt for the Explication of Waters Ascent into small Glasse Canes with praeliminarie Discourse" and dated Ap. 20, 1667. This autograph manuscript was lot 128 in a sale of the Towneley family's manuscripts sold in 1883. According to Webster it is now in Yale University Library. Hooke's first publication, in 1661, was a pamphlet on capillary actionCapillary action
Capillary action, or capilarity, is the ability of a liquid to flow against gravity where liquid spontanously rise in a narrow space such as between the hair of a paint-brush, in a thin tube, or in porous material such as paper or in some non-porous material such as liquified carbon fiber, or in a...
.
In 1970, Derek Howse brought to more general attention a collection of some seventy letters written between 1673 and 1688 by John Flamsteed
John Flamsteed
Sir John Flamsteed FRS was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. He catalogued over 3000 stars.- Life :Flamsteed was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, the only son of Stephen Flamsteed...
, the first Astronomer Royal, to Towneley. This collection of letters was acquired by the Royal Society in 1891. Professor Eric G. Forbes (1933–1984) recognised that a large amount of Flamsteed's correspondence had survived and began to collect and collate copies. This important work was continued after his death and was published from 1995. The Flamsteed correspondence explains how Towneley and Flamsteed began a correspondence that provides a unique insight into the early years of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
Flamsteed's first regular correspondent was John Collins
John Collins (mathematician)
John Collins was an English mathematician. He is most known for his extensive correspondence with leading scientists and mathematicians such as Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton, and John Wallis...
(1625–1683), who corresponded extensively with many mathematicians including Towneley. From their correspondence it appears Flamsteed visited London in June 1670, when Jonas Moore
Jonas Moore
Sir Jonas Moore, FRS was an English mathematician, surveyor, Ordnance Officer and patron of astronomy. He participated in two of the most ambitious English civil engineering projects of the 17th century: the draining of the Great Level of the Fens and the building of the Mole at Tangier...
(1617–1679) gave him the micrometer illustrated by Hooke in 1667. Both Collins and Moore advised Flamsteed to contact Towneley in order to make best use of the micrometer and Flamsteed first wrote to Towneley on 24 January 1671.
Flamsteed first visited Towneley Hall in 1671 to use the library there. Much later, when writing to William Molyneux
William Molyneux
William Molyneux FRS was an Irish natural philosopher and writer on politics.He was born in Dublin to Samuel Molyneux , lawyer and landowner , and his wife, Anne, née Dowdall. The second of five children, William Molyneux came from a relatively prosperous Anglican background...
(1656–1698), Flamsteed recorded how Christopher Towneley (1604–1674) and Moore had collected the papers of Gascoigne, along with some of Horrox and Cabtree. These eventually went into the library at Towneley. Flamsteed claimed that reading Gascoigne's papers in less than two hours provided him with the foundations for his understanding of optics. He returned for a longer stay in September 1672 to make measurements, together with Towneley, of the conjunction of the planet Mars with fixed stars with the intention of estimating the size of the solar system. Due to adverse weather conditions, Flamsteed only achieved his objective when he returned to Derbyshire later the same week.
Astronomy at Towneley Hall
Richard's uncle Christopher Towneley (1604–74) had befriended a number of the northern astronomers, including Jeremiah HorrocksJeremiah Horrocks
Jeremiah Horrocks , sometimes given as Jeremiah Horrox , was an English astronomer who was the only person to predict, and one of only two people to observe and record, the transit of Venus of 1639.- Life and work :Horrocks was born in Lower Lodge, in...
, William Crabtree
William Crabtree
William Crabtree was an astronomer, mathematician, and merchant from Broughton, then a township near Manchester, which is now part of Salford, Greater Manchester, England...
, William Gascoigne
William Gascoigne
Sir William Gascoigne Kt. was Chief Justice of England during the reign of King Henry IV. Sir William Gascoigne was born in Gawthorpe W-Riding, Yorks. In 1369, William married Elizabeth de Mowbray...
and John Stephenson, and collected their papers. As an astronomer Towneley carried on the tradition of observation, that had been established in the north of England by Horrocks, Crabtree and Gascoigne based on the work of Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican...
.
Towneley's main astronomical work was measuring eclipses of the moons of Jupiter and Flamsteed made copies of Towneley's results taken between 9 September 1665 and 21 September 1672. Flamsteed's first task as Astronomer Royal was to continue Towneley's work on the moons of Jupiter. The same work was also underway at the Observatoire de Paris and, in 1683, Flamsteed recorded a catalogue of eclipses of Jupiter's satellites for the following year based on communication from, amongst others, Mr Towneley. This was at the time, the best method of determining longitude and, although unsuited for use at sea, was successful in determining the true longitude of remote coasts for the correction of charts.
A regular topic of the Flamsteed letters was the weather and how clouds had prevented measurement. In this respect, Towneley had two particular pieces of luck with weather in Lancashire. The first concerned a solar eclipse on 1 June 1676. The new Observatory at Greenwich was nearing completion and it was decided that this eclipse was a fitting occasion for the inaugural observations. The King had said he would like to be present. The day turned out to be cloudy at Greenwich and there was no Royal presence. Flamsteed was still able to report the event using the data recorded in Lancashire by Towneley. The second event concerned a transit of Mercury
Transit of Mercury
A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury comes between the Sun and the Earth, and Mercury is seen as a small black dot moving across the face of the Sun....
on 28 October 1677. In Lancashire, Towneley was able to observe the sun through "flying clouds" during the last part of the event and was able to time Mercury's exit. Neither Greenwich nor Paris were so lucky as clouds covered most of Europe. There was only one other European report of Mercury's exit, from Avignon, but Edmund Halley much further south on St Helena was able to record the entire event.
The Tompion Clocks at Greenwich and the Dead-beat Escapement
Once at Greenwich, Flamsteed asked Towneley to help him prove that the Earth rotated at a constant speed. Towneley designed a novel clock escapementEscapement
In mechanical watches and clocks, an escapement is a device that transfers energy to the timekeeping element and enables counting the number of oscillations of the timekeeping element...
for this purpose and two astronomical clocks were commissioned to his design from the clockmaker Thomas Tompion
Thomas Tompion
Thomas Tompion was an English clock maker, watchmaker and mechanician who is still regarded to this day as the Father of English Clockmaking. Tompion's work includes some of the most historic and important clocks and watches in the world and can command very high prices whenever outstanding...
and installed at the Greenwich Observatory. The clocks were paid for by Sir Jonas Moore
Jonas Moore
Sir Jonas Moore, FRS was an English mathematician, surveyor, Ordnance Officer and patron of astronomy. He participated in two of the most ambitious English civil engineering projects of the 17th century: the draining of the Great Level of the Fens and the building of the Mole at Tangier...
, Surveyor General of the King's Ordnance and a friend of Towneley. Towneley had recognised that the second hand of pendulum clocks, using an anchor escapement
Anchor escapement
In horology, the recoil or anchor escapement is a type of escapement used in pendulum clocks. An escapement is the mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum and allows the clock's wheels to advance a fixed amount with each swing, moving the hands forward...
, jerked backward due to recoil. Towneley's design eliminated the recoil and was the first of a kind that came to be known as a deadbeat escapement. The clocks were installed on 7 July 1676.
Flamsteed wrote often to Towneley about the clocks, which were made to run for a year between windings. It proved difficult to keep both clocks running for a whole year and, in January 1678, Tompion replaced the original escapement with one of his own design. The clocks eventually went for four years without stopping and Flamsteed was able to prove to his own satisfaction that the Earth rotated at a constant speed. [Although Towneley and Tompion could be considered the first people to attempt to make a deadbeat escapement, it was only in about 1715 that George Graham (clockmaker)
George Graham (clockmaker)
George Graham was an English clockmaker, inventor, and geophysicist, and a Fellow of the Royal Society.He was born to George Graham in Kirklinton, Cumberland. A Friend like his mentor Thomas Tompion, Graham left Cumberland in 1688 for London to work with Tompion...
created one that was truly successful.]
Systematic rainfall measurement
In 1977, British meteorologists celebrated the tercentenary of the start of systematic rainfall recording in the British Isles by Richard Towneley. Towneley began making regular measurements of rainfall in January 1677 and published records of monthly rainfall for 15 years from that time in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1694. In the report, Towneley described the measurements in great detail "to show you how little trouble there is to this task; which therefore I hope some of your ingenious friends may be persuaded to undertake". He wrote that at Towneley there was twice the quantity of rain that fell in Paris. He further claimed that the Eastern parts of Lancashire were subject to more rain than Yorkshire due to clouds driven by South West winds falling as rain on the high ground that divides the two counties. Towneley called for more measurements elsewhere to test the claim that his area had more rain than in other parts of the country. Only William DerhamWilliam Derham
William Derham was an English clergyman and natural philosopher. He produced the earliest, reasonably accurate estimate of the speed of sound.-Life:...
appears to have taken up Towneley's challenge and they jointly published the rainfall measurements for Towneley and Upminster
Upminster
Upminster is a suburban town in northeast London, England, and part of the London Borough of Havering. Located east-northeast of Charing Cross, it is one of the locally important district centres identified in the London Plan, and comprises a number of shopping streets and a large residential...
in Essex for the years 1697 to 1704.
A local historian has suggested that Towneley was possibly prompted to maintain rainfall records in support of lime
Lime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
hushing
Hushing
Hushing is an ancient and historic mining method using a flood or torrent of water to reveal mineral veins. The method was applied in several ways, both in prospecting for ores, and for their exploitation. Mineral veins are often hidden below soil and sub-soil, which must be stripped away to...
activities on his land, however there is no hard evidence to support this conjecture. Rather there is evidence that Towneley had already expressed interest in measuring rainfall across different parts of England before 1677. In July 1676, Flamsteed promised Towneley he would take note of rainfall at Greenwich and expressed his opinion that "beyond Trent it is much more rainy than here". Flamsteed went as far as placing a rain gauge on an outhouse of the Observatory in 1677 but he never reported any measurements.
Other activities
This section contains additional references from earlier versions of this page that need reviewing:Towneley had a close friendship with the Belgian mathematician, François Walther de Sluze
François Walther de Sluze
René-François Walter de Sluse , canon of Liège and abbot of Amay was a Walloon mathematician.-Biography:...
,
He also designed and built a carriage that passed smoothly over rough roads.
A collection of his remaining scientific papers are now in the Bodleian Library
Later life and achievements
On the succession of King James IIJames II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
in 1685 the Catholics were again allowed to take part in public life and Richard Towneley became a Justice of the Peace
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
. After 1688, this brief respite for English Catholics ended, the King had to flee the country and in February 1689 he was replaced by his daughter Mary
Mary II of England
Mary II was joint Sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant, respectively, following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of...
and her Protestant husband William of Orange
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
. In 1690, Richard and his son Charles were implicated in plots to secure the return of King James II and from this time on the family were noted for their Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
sympathies.
His mother Mary died in 1690 at the age of 91.
Richard Towneley died at York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
on 22 January 1707.