ABSTRACT
In the historical survey that preceded his monumental HistoriaCoelestisBritannica (1725),the Revd John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, placed the new Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park firmly in context, as part of a great European Renaissance development of astronomy stretching from Regiomontanus two centuries before to Tycho Brahe, Hevelius and finally to Greenwich. Lying at the heart of its achievement were increasing instrumental accuracy and systematic observation. Greenwich had been founded in 1675 to produce superior astronomical tables whereby mariners might find their longitude at sea, and it was Flamsteed’s firm conviction that this could only be done by using angular data of the highest order, obtained by increasingly precise instruments. This vision was shared by each of Flamsteed’s successors, the Oxonians Edmond Halley, James Bradley and Nathaniel Bliss, followed by Nevil Maskelyne and an equally distinguished body of Cambridge men after 1765. Yet the astronomers were only part of the story, for the men who designed and built the instruments, such as Thomas Tompion, George Graham and John Bird (the latter two becoming Fellows of the Royal Society), turned vision into practical reality. For, at Greenwich, science, technology, history and maritime safety, all came together to help shape the modern world.
