5 - A circle of astronomers

Summary

Edward Holden

It was Agnes Clerke's good fortune to have made contact, early in her career, with Edward Holden (Figure 5.1), whose help she acknowledged in the Preface to her History. Holden was at that time professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin and director of that university's Washburn Observatory. Agnes Clerke and Holden never met; they appear to have been put in touch by a mutual friend, Dr Richard Garnett of the British Museum, whom Holden had got to know on an earlier visit to England. The friendly correspondence between the two, initiated by Holden in 1884, was to give her a good start as a chronicler of astronomy, though Holden's own eventual career was destined to be less happy.

Edward Holden's visit to London took place in 1876 – a year before the Clerkes came to live there. Holden was at that time an assistant at the Naval Observatory in Washington – his first appointment – and had been sent by the US Government to inspect the Collection of Scientific Instruments in the Museum. It would have been natural for him to visit the British Museum, and to make the acquaintance of Garnett there. Indeed, the two would have had much in common. Holden was a good linguist and a man of wide cultural interests among which was the deciphering of hieroglyphic stone writings in the Yukatan. He was later to publish papers on Persian poetry, and other oriental subjects.