LOCKYER, SIR JOSEPH NORMAN 1_3_ ( 6 ,-1920), English astronomer, was born at Rugby on May 17, 1836. After completing his education on the Continent of Europe, he obtained a clerkship in the War Office in 1857. His leisure was devoted to the study of astronomy, and he was appointed in 1870 secre tary to the duke of Devonshire's royal commission on science. In 1875 he was transferred to the Science and Art Department at South Kensington, and on the foundation of the Royal Col lege of Science he became director of the solar physics observa tory and professor of astronomical physics. Eight British Govern ment expeditions for observing total solar eclipses were conducted by him between 1870 and 1905, accounts of them being given in his Recent and Coming Eclipses (1897 and 1900) He was a pioneer in the application of the spectroscope to the sun and stars. He initiated in 1866 the spectroscopic observation of sun spots ; announced in 1868 that the prominences were upheavals in a layer round the sun which he called the chromosphere ; applied Doppler's principle to the sun in 1869; and successfully investi gated the chemistry of the sun from 1872 onward. In 1868 Lockyer and Janssen, working independently, discovered a spec troscopic method whereby the solar prominences could be ob served in daylight, whereas previously they could be observed only at a total eclipse. To commemorate this discovery a medal
bearing the names of both astronomers was struck by the French Government in 1872. With the co-operation of Lady Lockyer he had built an observatory at Sidmouth and carried on there his photographic and spectroscopic work. After Lockyer's death this observatory was named the "Norman Lockyer Observatory." He was an enthusiast, inaugurating Nature in 1869, which he edited until his death on Aug. 14, 192o. He was made a F.R.S. in 1869, received the Rumford medal in 1874, and was vice-president of the Society 1892-93. He was president of the British Associa tion in 1903, and contributed papers to the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society. Also, he wrote : The Chemistry of the Sun (1887) The Sun's place in Nature (1897) ; The Dawn of Astronomy (1894) Stonehenge and other British Stone Monu ments astronomically considered (1906); Inorganic Evolution (19oo).
See T. M. and W. L. Lockyer, Life and Work of Sir Norman Lockyer (2928).