FLAMSTEAD, JOHN, a celebrated astronomer, was born, according to some, in the village of Denby, in the county of Derby, on the 19th of August 1646, although others maintain that he was born in the town of Del by. The registers of both of these parishes were examined in order to ascertain this point, but his birth does not seem to have been registered, probably on account or the commo tions which at that time agitated England. His father re sided at Derby, and he received his classical education at the free school of that place. At the age of 14, a severe illness obliged his friends to take him home, where the ac cidental perusal of Sacrobosco's treatise De Slzhiera inspi red him with a passion for astronomy. By means of the Caroline tables, published by Street, he was instructed in the method of computing eclipses, and the places of the planets. One of his calculations of an eclipse, procured Min the friendship of Mr Emanuel Halton, residing at Wingfield manor, who was well acquainted with the ma thematics, and who supplied young Flamstead with the best astronomical works then extant, among which were Riccioli's Almagestum .Arovum, and Kepler's Rudolphine Tables. With these aids he made rapid advances in the knowledge of astronomy, and in the year 1669 he sent a paper to Lord Brouncker, President of the Royal Society, enti tled, ".drz, 4ccount of such of the more remarkable Celestial Phenomena of the year 1670, as will be conspicuous in the _English Horizon." This paper was read and approved of, and obtained for young Flamstead the friendship and correspondence of some of the first astronomers in London. In the year 1670, Flamstead undertook a journey to London, for the purpose of seeing his scientific friends; and he had the good fortune to become acquainted with Sir Jonas Nlore, Mr Collins, and Mr Oldenburg, the first of whom was ever afterwards his patron and warmest friend. When in London, he purchased two telescopes, a micrometer, and several other lust' uments with which he had not been pro vided. After leaving London, he entered himself a student of Jesus College, Cambridge, where he became acquainted with Dr Barrow and Sir Isaac Newton. As soon as he returned to Derby, he resumed his astronomical studies. In 1671, he sent ke the Royal Society calculations of the appulses of the moon to several fixed stars, for the year 1672 ; and about the end of the same year, he transmitted another communication, containing his observations on the ansx of the planet Saturn, made with telescopes, the larg est of which was fourteen feet long In the same year, he observed, with a Townley's micrometer adapted to the preceding telescope, the relative position of the principal stars in the Pleiades, and he computed their occultation by the moon in the subsequent year. In 1673, he composed a treatise on the true and apparent diameters of the planets, which Sir Isaac Newton employed in the 4th book lf the Principzia. When he was in London in 1674, Si 'has
More having informed him, that a true account of the tides would be acceptable to the king, he composed a small ephemeris for his majesty's use. He likewise recom mended himself to the royal favour, by presenting to his Majesty a pair of barometers, with the method of using them. Having resolved to enter the church, Mr Hain stead was ordained by Bishop Gunning in 1675, but several years elapsed before lie obtained any preferment. Through the influence chiefly of Sir Jonas More, King Charles II, was prevailed upon, in 1676, to found the royal observatory of Greenwich, afterwards called Flamstead house, and to appoint Flamstead to the office of Astrono mer Royal, with a salary of 100/. per annum. On August 21, 1676, he observed at Greenwich, the occultation of Mars. In the beginning of 1677, he observed the comet of that year. In the year 1681, Flamstead's Treatise on the Doctrine of the Sphere was published in Sir Jonas More's System of the Mathematics ; and in 1687, he was presented to the living of Burslow in Surry, which he retained till his death. • As soon as he had entered upon his new office, Flam stead directed almost the whole of his attention to prac tical astronomy. By means of the best instruments of the times, he observed the lunar motions with great assiduity, and he determined the places of the fixed stars with much greater accuracy than had been done before. Contrary to the wishes of Flamstead, an edition of his observations was published in 1712, by Dr Halley, in one volume folio ; but as he would never acknowledge this work as his own, he prepared a new edition of it ; but before its completion he died of st•angury, on the 31st of December 1719, in the 73d year of his age.
Mr Flamstead was admitted a member of the Royal Society on the 13th of February 1678, and he contributed to the transactions of that learned body a great variety of valuable papers. His celebrity, however, is chiefly found ed on his Historia Celestis Britannica, a work in three vo lumes folio, which was published by his widow in 1725. See AsTnoNomy, Flamstead is represented by his biographers as of a mo rose and unsociable disposition, and as having been on bad terms with most of his contemporaries. " From some of his letters," says Dr Thomson, (History of the Royal So ciety, p. 335,) " it even appears that lie complained of Sir Isaac Newton as unreasonable in his demands of observa tions. Dr Halley, in the preface of the Historia Britannica, draws rather an unfavourable picture of the disposition of Flamstead ; and I find, from one of Sir Hans Sloane's MSS. in the British Museum, that, in the year 1710, he was expelled the Royal Society, because he re fused to pay his annual contribution." (o)