Edward Troughton

Groombridge transit circle

Edward Troughton FRS (October 1753 – 12 June 1835) was a British instrument maker who was notable for making telescopes and other astronomical instruments.^[1]

Troughton was born at Corney, Cumberland. In 1779, after serving an apprenticeship with his elder brother John, he became his partner and soon established himself as the top maker of navigational, surveying and astronomical instruments in Britain.

In 1795 he delivered the Troughton Equatorial Telescope to the Armagh Observatory, a 2 inch aperture refractor telescope mounted equatorially, and its first major instrument since its founding in 1790 (It survived into the 21st century also). ^[2] He created the Groombridge Transit Circle in 1806, which Stephen Groombridge used to compile his star catalogue.^[3] He did not merely build instruments, but designed and invented new ones.

Troughton was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1809. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1810.^[4]

In 1826, after John's death and in failing health himself, he took on William Simms as a partner and the firm became known as Troughton & Simms.

Troughton was involved in a lawsuit against Sir James South, who was dissatisfied with the quality of an equatorial mounting that Troughton made for him. Troughton sued for payment, and with informal legal counsel provided by Richard Sheepshanks, he prevailed.^[5]

Troughton was color blind. On his death he was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

References[edit]

^ Biography at The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
^ http://www.arm.ac.uk/history/troughton/frames.html
^ Groombridge Transit Circle, 1820. -- Science and Society Picture Library
^ "Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2007". London: The Royal Society. Retrieved 18 July 2010.
^ The South-Troughton quarrel

External links[edit]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Troughton, Edward.

v t e Copley Medallists of 1801–1850

Astley Cooper (1801) William Hyde Wollaston (1802) Richard Chenevix (1803) Smithson Tennant (1804) Humphry Davy (1805) Thomas Andrew Knight (1806) Everard Home (1807) William Henry (1808) Edward Troughton (1809) Benjamin Collins Brodie (1811) William Thomas Brande (1813) James Ivory (1814) David Brewster (1815) Henry Kater (1817) Robert Seppings (1818) Hans Christian Ørsted (1820) Edward Sabine / John Herschel (1821) William Buckland (1822) John Pond (1823) John Brinkley (1824) François Arago / Peter Barlow (1825) James South (1826) William Prout / Henry Foster (1827) George Biddell Airy (1831) Michael Faraday / Siméon Denis Poisson (1832) Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana (1834) William Snow Harris (1835) Jöns Jacob Berzelius / Francis Kiernan (1836) Antoine César Becquerel / John Frederic Daniell (1837) Carl Friedrich Gauss / Michael Faraday (1838) Robert Brown (1839) Justus von Liebig / Jacques Charles François Sturm (1840) Georg Ohm (1841) James MacCullagh (1842) Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1843) Carlo Matteucci (1844) Theodor Schwann (1845) Urbain Le Verrier (1846) John Herschel (1847) John Couch Adams (1848) Roderick Murchison (1849) Peter Andreas Hansen (1850)

1731–1750 1751–1800 1801–1850 1851–1900 1901–1950 1951–2000 2001–present

Persondata
Name	Troughton, Edward
Alternative names
Short description	British telescope maker
Date of birth	1753
Place of birth
Date of death	12 June 1835
Place of death

Fan Made Hartnell / Troughton Intro

See also[edit]

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