Reach for the stars

In the 200 years since its foundation, the Royal Astronomical Society has borne witness to the discoveries of Albert Einstein, Edwin Hubble and Stephen Hawking, as well as an enduring fascination with our less-immediate surroundings, reports Jack Watkins

- Jack Watkins

PEOPLE on these islands have been recording observations of the stars since time immemorial. In the 8th century, the Venerable Bede, the outstanding scholar of the Northumbrian Renaissance, attempted to explain the movement of the Sun and Moon through the zodiac. By the end of the 13th century, astronomy was a university subject. However, it wasn’t until 1820 that a dedicated body, with the motto Quicquid nitet notandum (‘Whatever shines should be observed’) was formed, initially as the Astronomical Society of London and, from 1831, as the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS).

‘The Royal Society was still the pre-eminent scientific organisation at that time, but its membership was dominated by aristocratic generalists,’ explains Sian Prosser, the RAS’s librarian and archivist. ‘This had already led to the establishment of specialised scientific societies, such as the Linnean Society (1788) and the Geological Society (1807). As the Royal Society was led by Sir Joseph Banks, a naturalist, it was also felt it had moved away from mathematics and physical science. The Astronomical Society was the inevitable consequence of that.’