POND, JOHN (c. 1767-1836), English astronomer-royal, was born about 1767 in London. After leaving Trinity college, Cambridge, he settled at Westbury near Bristol, and began to determine star-places with a fine altitude and azimuth circle of 21 ft. diameter by E. Troughton. His demonstration in 1806 (Phil. Trans. xcvi. 420) of a change of form in the Greenwich mural quadrant led to the introduction of astronomical circles at the Royal Observatory, and to his own appointment as its head. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on Feb. 26, 2807; he married and went to live in London in the same year, and in 181i succeeded Maskelyne as astronomer-royal.
Under Pond the instrumental equipment at Greenwich was completely changed, and the number of assistants increased from one to six. The superior accuracy of his determinations was attested by S. C. Chandler's discussion of them in 1894, in the course of his researches into the variation of latitude (Astron.
Journ. Nos. 313, 315). Pond received many academic honours. He published eight folio volumes of Greenwich Observations, translated Laplace's Systeme du monde (in 2 vols. 8vo., 1809), and contributed thirty-one papers to scientific collections. His catalogue of 1,112 stars (1833) was of great value. He retired in 1835 and died at Blackheath on Sept. 7, 1836, and was buried beside Halley in the churchyard at Lee.
See Mem. Roy. Astron. Soc. x. 357 ; Proc. Roy. Soc. iii. 434 ; Penny Cyclopardia (De Morgan) ; F. W. Bessel, Pop. Vorlesungen, P. 543 Report Brit. Assoc. i. 128, 136 (Airy) ; Sir G. Airy's Autobiography, p. 127; Observatory, xiii. 204, xxii. 357 ; Annual Biography and Obit uary (1837) ; R. Grant, Hist. of Phys. Astron. p. 491 ; Royal Society's Cat. Scient. Papers; Maunder, The Royal Observatory Greenwich.