OBITUARY NOTICES. 
Sir George Biddell Airy. By Professor Copeland. 
(Read January 30, 1893.) 
George Biddell Airy was born at Alnwick on the 27tb of July 
1801. He received his earlier education partly at Hereford and 
elsewhere, but chiefly at Colchester Grammar School. In the 
autumn of 1819 he was sent to Cambridge, where, at first, he 
studied at the expense of his maternal uncle, Arthur Biddell of 
Playford, near Ipswich. He entered Trinity College as a sizar, and 
although partly supporting himself by teaching, he found time while 
yet an undergraduate to contribute a paper on glass reflectors 
silvered at the back to the Cambridge Philosophical Transactions, 
then recently started. In 1823 he graduated as senior wrangler, 
and was elected a Fellow of his College in the following year. 
About this time he wrote a number of important papers on the 
figure of the earth and on other subjects, not the least valuable of 
these being one on astigmatism of the eyes and the simple modifica- 
tion of the spectacles, by the introduction of the single cylindrical 
surface necessary for its correction. 
At the end of 1826 he was appointed Lucasian Professor, and 
early in 1828 Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Natural Philo- 
sophy, as well as Director of the new observatory. He at once 
threw himself heart and soul into both functions of his office, giving 
experimental lectures, and also systematically observing the sun, 
moon, planets, and stars with the Dollond transit instrument which, 
with a couple of clocks, formed the whole equipment of the obser- 
vatory. The completely reduced observations were published year 
by year in worthy emulation of the example set on the Continent 
by Bessel and Struve some years previously. No trouble, we are 
