| | 1 | Name: | Samuel Filsted | | | Year Elected: | 1771 | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
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| 2 | Name: | Archibald Gloucester | | | Year Elected: | 1771 | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
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| 3 | Name: | Nevil Maskelyne | | | Year Elected: | 1771 | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 10/5/1732 | | | Death Date: | 2/9/1811 | | | | | | |
Nevil Maskelyne (5 October 1732–9 February 1811) was an astronomer, and mathematician, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1771. Born in London, the son of a well-connected clerk, Maskelyne was educated in Westminster where he decided to pursue astronomy. He attended the University of Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in 1754. To qualify for an advantageous fellowship, he took Holy Orders a year later, and became a fellow of the Trinity. He graduated with his M.A., and earned election to his major fellowship the following year. In 1758 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, who assigned him to St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic, to observe the transit of Venus in 1760. While traveling, Maskelyne began studying the lunar-distance method of measuring longitude for nautical navigation. On St. Helena, he found little success due to cloudy weather, but he continued studying the lunar-distance method on his return trip and published his findings in 1763. Impressed by his work, the Board of Longitude tasked Maskelyne with testing the accuracy of the H4 chronometer by using his method to measure the longitude of Barbados. He returned to England to find a royal warrant appointing him director of the Greenwich observatory. As director, Maskelyne implemented the yearly publishing of a nautical almanac. As per order of the King, he resided at the observatory and focused on astronomical observations: making some 90,000 in his lifetime and publishing findings every decade. He also contributed to the far more successful 1769 transit of Venus observations. In 1774, he attempted to measure the density of the Earth on behalf of the Royal Society and won its Copley Medal for his findings. He received honors from institutions all over the world, including those in Hanover, Russia, Poland, France, and Massachusetts. He worked tirelessly at the observatory until falling ill and dying there. (DNB) | |
| 4 | Name: | Charles Morton | | | Year Elected: | 1771 | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1716 | | | Death Date: | 2/10/1799 | | | | | | |
Charles Morton (1716–10 February 1799) was a physician, librarian, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1771. He was born in Westmorland in England and studied medicine at Leiden University in the Netherlands before returning to England to begin his practice. He graduated as a doctor in 1748 after publishing his thesis, De Tussi Convulsiva. A few years later he was a consultant physician at Middlesex Hospital in London, and physician at Foundling Hospital four years after that. During this time he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (1751), and a member of the Royal Society of London (1752). In 1756, upon the establishment of the British Museum, Morton accepted an appointment as an under-librarian, responsible for manuscripts, books, coins, and medals. In 1758 Morton was promoted to head of the new department of manuscripts. During this time he became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Russian imperial science academy, the Imperatorskaya Akademiya Nauk in St. Petersburg. He also was admitted to German science academies, including the Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften and the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, and he served as secretary to the Royal Society of London from 1759 to 1774. His reputation began to falter after working on an edition of the Domesday Book, after which he received a payment of £500 ‘for doing little or nothing’ and ultimately someone else finished and published the facsimile. Still, in 1776 Morton became principal librarian at the British Museum, though by this time his gout began to impede on his daily life and his reputation for inactivity only grew; he even failed to appear for a visit from King George III. He married three times. His third and final wife was a close relative of his second, forty five years his junior, and they wedded only two months after the second’s death, in 1779. He died a few years later in his apartments in the British Museum. (DNB) | |
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