Hugh Frank Newall, FRS FRAS (21 June 1857 – 22 February 1944) was a British astrophysicist. He was Professor of Astrophysics (1909) at Cambridge. He was the son of Robert Stirling Newall FRS and his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Lee Pattinson, FRS. Newall took the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Tripos from

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, and was elected Fellow in 1909. His father was an astronomer, and the Newall Telescope, a 25-inch refractor, built at

Gateshead Gateshead () is a town in the Gateshead Metropolitan Borough of Tyne and Wear, England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank. The town's attractions include the twenty metre tall Angel of the North sculpture on the town's southern outskirts, ...

, was in its time the largest in existence. As things turned out, the telescope would dominate the son's life. Newall took up school mastering at Wellington after graduating. He returned to Cambridge when J.J. Thomson, the Nobel prizewinning physicist, asked him to be his assistant. After a period as demonstrator in experimental physics at the

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

he turned to astronomy. This came about because in 1889 the university was offered Newall senior's telescope, but claimed to lack the funds to receive it and use it. Newall (junior) thereupon paid the removal expenses and then served as observer, and, from 1909 to 1928, as first holder of the chair of astrophysics, without a stipend. The telescope was installed beside the 1810 telescope at the

Observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

on Madingley Road, and Newall built a home at Madingley Rise which became for half a century a resort of visiting astronomers. He served as president of the

Royal Astronomical Society The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is a learned society and charitable organisation, charity that encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, planetary science, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science. Its ...

for a customary two-year term, 1907–1909. In 1913 he became the first director of the Solar Physics Observatory. Though elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) in June 1902 for work on the spectrum of Capella, Newall was more a facilitator than a creative scientist. He led many eclipse expeditions. He married twice, first to Margaret (a pianist) the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and second, Dame Bertha Surtees Phillpotts, Scandinavian Scholar, formerly Mistress of Girton College, and the only woman member of the Royal Commission on Cambridge (1923-7), who is buried in Tunbridge Wells. He is buried in the Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground in Cambridge.

External links

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Trinity College Chapel

References

*Alumni Cantabrigienses *NEWALL, Hugh Frank’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012; online edn, Oct 201
accessed 28 Feb 2013
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newall, Hugh 1857 births 1944 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Presidents of the Royal Astronomical Society Professors of Astrophysics (Cambridge) Presidents of the Cambridge Philosophical Society