Abstract
THE Mathematical Tripos list of 1880 is probably the only list of its kind which has produced three professors for the University of Cambridge—Sir Joseph Larmor, Prof. H. F. Newall, and Sir Joseph Thomson. Happily, all three are still actively at work, though Prof. Newall has announced his coming retirement. Formerly assistant to the Cavendish professor and demonstrator in experimental physics in the Cavendish Laboratory, he became Newall observer in charge of the 25-inch Newall refractor when, in 1890, his father, Mr. R. S. Newall, F.R.S., presented it to the University of Cambridge. In his hands the Newall dome became an active centre of pioneer astrophysical research and the seed of a large and growing department in the University. First of all, in 1907, a Littrow spectrograph fed by a cœlostat and a lens of 60 ft. focal length was provided from the bequest of Mr. Frank McClean; then, in 1908, the telescopes with which Sir William Huggins had carried out his pioneer investigations on stellar spectra were presented to the University by the Royal Society, while the whole establishment under Prof. Newall's direction was greatly increased when, in 1911, the University accepted the charge of the Solar Physics Observatory on its transfer from South Kensington, and Prof. Newall became its director. He had already, in 1909, become professor of astrophysics and a fellow of Trinity College. In addition to astrophysics and solar physics, Prof. Newall has throughout actively fostered in the Observatory research in meteorological physics. He has been for many years an elector to the Isaac Newton Studentships, and in that work, as also through the Observatory Club which he founded in 1909, he has exercised a marked influence on generations of the younger students in astronomy. In his retirement, with greater freedom from administrative cares and more time to complete his own work, it may be hoped that his knowledge and influence may make themselves felt for many years to the continued benefit of the science to which he has devoted himself.
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News and Views. Nature 122, 618–623 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122618a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122618a0