ABSTRACT
David J. Stickland, 20042 Obscured by the public row, university-based professional astronomers appeared to become the principal new beneficiaries when on 4 July 1997 the British government delivered the most dramatic evidence of a fundamental redistribution of funding and of a shift in priorities for British astronomical research for the twenty-first century. Many in the world of science and beyond were shocked when the government announced the forthcoming closure on 31 October 1998 of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (hereafter RGO), Britain’s oldest scientific institution: the phrase ‘scientific vandalism’ was much used.3 On the one hand for half a century since the end of World War Two most of the university astronomers had lacked first-class observatories of their own, and had become bereft in the UK of observatory buildings and instruments that were even interesting or impressive; therefore, with the exception of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, they had a low public profile. On the other hand, since the 1970s the professors, their post-doctoral research assistants and best graduate students had increasingly been able to apply for observing time on powerful new British telescopes located overseas. These instruments were largely developed by the RGO through the intimate relationship between its astronomers who knew what was needed, and its own engineers and technical staff who knew what might be possible and how to achieve it. This evolving expertise enabled the RGO to remain at the forefront of astrophysical research.4 Hence for any assessment of the British contribution to the history of astronomy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or of how and why university astronomers were represented by government as needing to be the beneficiaries of the 1997 decision, the quotations above from two astronomer scholars suggest where to look. The realities that the government perceived as the accumulation of research skills that must be prioritized, and the dilemma of how also to fund world-class instruments, are rooted in the history of the university sector of the astronomical community before 1939.
