James Dunlop ( 1793 – 1848), Astronomer from Dalry

On this day in history, James Dunlop, Astronomer Royal of New South Wales, died in 1848.  Standing about 5 feet 6 inches tall, James had an outgoing, friendly personality, with interests in astronomy, poetry, geology and botany.  He was born 31 October 1793 in Dalry, the fourth of seven children born to parents John Dunlop, a weaver, and Janet Boyle.  Educated to primary level, he began work aged 14 in Mr Faulds thread factory, Beith, where he displayed a natural aptitude for mechanical engineering.  At 17 he was constructing lathes, telescopes and casting reflectors in his leisure time.  He furthered his education at night classes in the Strand, Beith, and by 1818 had risen to foreman of the thread factory.  With his father’s health failing, James returned to Dalry along with his wife Jane Service whom he married on 14 June 1816 in Kilwinning and began working as a handloom weaver.  Following his father’s death in May 1819, James moved to Trearne Gate House, Beith.

Through the Patricks of Trearne, James came to the attention of Major-General Sir Thomas Makdougall Brisbane, an amateur astronomer who had his own private observatory in Largs.  When Sir Thomas Brisbane was appointed sixth governor of New South Wales, Australia he decided to build a private observatory at Parramatta, Sydney to explore the southern skies.  He selected German astronomer Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker as his chief astronomer and James Dunlop to assist and maintain the astronomical instruments.  In early 1821 Dunlop packed up Brisbane’s astronomical instruments at the Largs observatory for shipment to Australia, before travelling to Leith with his wife, where they boarded a ship on 07 March 1821, meeting Sir Thomas Brisbane in London.  They set sail for Australia on 18 May 1821 onboard the merchant ship “Royal George” arriving in Sydney along with Carl Rümker on 07 November 1821 – five and a half months later!

Arriving at Parramatta, they set up their instruments in time to observe the summer solstice on 21 December 1821.  Funded by Brisbane, the Parramatta observatory was quickly erected, adjacent to Government House, and regular observations began in May 1822.   Carl Rümker began the work of compiling a catalogue of the Southern Stars assisted by James Dunlop.  On 02 June 1822 they observed the return of the periodic Encke’s Comet, which completes an orbit of the sun, once every 3.3 years.  Following a clash of personalities, Carl Rümker resigned in June 1823, leaving Dunlop to carry on.  Between June 1823 and February 1826, James Dunlop made 40,000 astronomical observations and catalogued 7,385 stars, completing the Parramatta Star Catalogue.

Dunlop left the observatory in April 1826, moving to Hunter Street, Parramatta, where he continued to observe the southern star clusters and nebulae with a 9-feet reflecting telescope he had built, which had a 9-inch aperture.  Over the next seven months, without financial backing, Dunlop compiled a large catalogue recording 621 clusters and nebulae and compiled a catalogue of 253 double stars.

James Dunlop returned to Scotland in 1827, working as an astronomer in Brisbane’s private observatory at Makerstoun House, near Kelso.  He brought with him a selection of birds, feathers, spears, eggs, and an embalmed Maori head, which were deposited with the Blair Museum in Dalry.

In 1828 his “Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars in the Southern Hemisphere” was published in the Royal Society of London’s “Philosophical Transactions”, and his list of double stars was published in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1829.  He was the first astronomer in Great Britain to observe the return of Encke’s Comet in October 1828.  Sir Thomas Brisbane and John Dunlop were presented with gold medals in 1828 by the President of the Astronomical Society of London, Sir John Hershel.  On one side of the medal was a head with the words “Royal Astronomical Society of London, Instituted 1820., Nubem pellente mathese” and on the reverse an engraving of Lord Ross’s telescope and the words “Quicquid nitet notandum, (whatever shines should be observed) James Dunlop, 1828.”  James was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1830 and after his return to Australia was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 16 January 1832 with his diploma being signed by the president, Sir Walter Scott. 

James Dunlop was appointed Superintendent of the Parramatta Observatory, now run by the New South Wales Government on 02 June 1831 with a salary of £300.  He set sail from London on 14 June 1831 arriving in Sydney on 07 November 1831 onboard “The Mary” which also carried convicts.  He was officially appointed Astronomer Royal of New South Wales on 11 November 1831.  Upon arriving at Parramatta, he found the observatory and instruments to be in a state of disrepair and set about restoring them.  In 1833 James was awarded a medal from the King of Denmark and in 1835 was awarded a medal from the Royal Institute of France, of which he was elected a member.

During his second period in Australia, Dunlop discovered two new comets.  However, due to lack of funding, the observatory and equipment at Parramatta fell into disrepair.  With his health failing, James resigned in August 1847 and moved to his farm at Boora Boora, Brisbane Water.  Shortly before his death, James and a neighbour got lost in the bush.  The resulting cold and exposure caused him to become severely ill and he died on 22 September 1848 at Boora Boora.  He is buried in Kincumber Anglican churchyard.  His wife Jane Dunlop, née Service, survived him by eleven years.  The place where his home stood at Boora Boora is now called Dunlop Hill.  Dunlop Memorial Park, Kincumber is named after him.

Today Dunlop’s “Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars in the Southern Hemisphere” remains a significant work, as the first galaxy catalogue of the southern skies, and even when the errors are removed, it remains an impressive and useful work for today’s astronomers.

After his death, the following poem appeared in a Sydney newspaper written by “Delta”:

To The Memory of James Dunlop, Esq., late Astronomer Royal of the Royal Observatory, Parramatta.

“When duller sons of clay return to earth,

Mourned by the crape and sable garb alone,

The son of genius, child of heavenly birth,

Returns to skies that claim his as their own.

He but approaches those dear realms of light

By his keen eye long anxiously surveyed;

Death is the period of his dreary night,

Where mortal darkness casts her deepest shade.

One solitary light amid the gloom,

A spark that found no kindred fuel here,

One flower that could not in a desert bloom,

Is one.  Dunlop, they memory claims a tear.”

Further Reading