->Simeon: Adding local short description: "English astronomer", overriding Wikidata description "English astronomer who worked in India" (Shortdesc helper)

2021-12-20T12:48:09Z

Adding local short description: "English astronomer", overriding Wikidata description "English astronomer who worked in India" (Shortdesc helper)

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{{Short description|English astronomer}}
'''Thomas Glanville Taylor''' (22 November 1804 – 4 May 1848) was an English astronomer who worked extensively at the [[Madras Observatory]] and produced the Madras Catalogue of Stars from around 1831 to 1839.
[[File:Madras_Observatory.jpg|thumb|The Madras Observatory c. 1838]]

==Life==
[[File:Magnetic_isoclines_India.jpg|left| thumb|upright|Magnetic survey of southern India]]
He was the son of Thomas Taylor, assistant at the [[Royal Greenwich Observatory]], and his wife Susannah née Glanville, born at [[Ashburton, Devon]]. [[John Pond]], the Astronomer Royal, suggested that the young boy choose a career in astronomy and he joined the observatory in 1820. From August 1822 he was in charge of making transit observations, and his ability was noted by [[Sir Edward Sabine]]. Taylor then worked on [[Stephen Groombridge]]'s star catalogue.<ref name=odnb>{{cite ODNB|id=27089|first=Anita|last=McConnell|title=Taylor, Thomas Glanville (1804-1848)}}</ref>

Taylor was appointed director of the East India Company's observatory at Madras, arriving there on 15 September 1830. He brought with him new equipment including transit telescopes and a mural circle. He worked with four Indian assistants, who took observations when he went to join the [[Great Trigonometrical Survey]]. Taylor collaborated with [[John Caldecott]] of the Travancore observatory to make observations on the magnetic field, especially the magnetic equator, of the earth around 1837.<ref name=odnb />

A Fellow of the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] and the [[Royal Society]] (elected 10 February 1842) Taylor helped establish an observatory at [[Doddabetta]] in [[Ootacamund]]. He was suffering from [[tuberculosis]] when he went to visit his ailing daughter in England in 1848. She died in April, and he himself died a month later, in [[Southampton]].<ref name=odnb /> He was succeeded at the Madras Observatory by [[William Stephen Jacob]] (1813-1862).

==Works==
Taylor began the publication of the ''Madras General Catalogue of Stars'' which was praised by [[Sir George Airy]]. His catalogues were of importance in navigation and in the Trigonometrical Survey for determining longitude as well as latitude.<ref name=odnb />

==Family==
Taylor married Eliza Baratty, daughter of Colonel Eley, on 4 July 1832. They had three sons and a daughter.<ref name=odnb />

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links ==
* [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176871 ''Results Of Astronomical Observations Made At The Honorable The East India Company's Observatory At Madras, Vol.1 For The Year 1831''], [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176871 Volume IV]
* [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176961 ''A General Catalogue of the Principal Fixed Stars from observations made at the Honorable, The East India Company's Observatory at Madras'']
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1804 births]]
[[Category:1848 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century British astronomers]]
[[category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:People from Ashburton, Devon]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Thomas Glanville}}
{{astronomer-stub}}

Thomas Glanville Taylor - Revision history

->Simeon: Adding local short description: "English astronomer", overriding Wikidata description "English astronomer who worked in India" (Shortdesc helper)