OBITUARY NOTICES. 
431 
WILLIAM CRAWFORD WINLOCK. 
1859-1896. 
[Read before the Society, January 9, 1897.] 
William Crawford Winlock, the eldest son of Joseph and 
Isabella Lane Winlock, was born in Cambridge, Massachu¬ 
setts, March 27, 1859. His parents were descended from 
that sturdy Virginian stock that served their country long 
and faithfully in the War of the Revolution, and then moved 
westward to found new States beyond the mountains. The 
father, Joseph Winlock, was born in Shelby county, Ken¬ 
tucky ; was educated at Shelby College, in that State; became 
Professor of Mathematics, U. S. Navy, then Superintendent 
of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, and in 
1866 was made Director of the Harvard College Observatory. 
It was during his father’s residence at the observatory in 
Cambridge that young Winlock reached the age w T hen defi¬ 
nite tendencies of thought are likely to indicate the line of 
work that is to absorb the interest of active manhood. Reared 
under the influences and unconscious training of a cultivated 
home and in daily contact with men whose zeal and enthu¬ 
siasm carried them cheerfully through all the laborious 
routine and details of exacting scientific work, it is not sur¬ 
prising that his interest in the work of the practical astron¬ 
omer was developed at an early age. 
His preparatory training as a student was obtained in the 
public schools in Cambridge, and he graduated at Harvard 
College in the class of 1880. During the last years of his 
college life he improved opportunities for obtaining valuable 
information regarding the construction and use of several of 
the principal instruments of the observatory, and under the 
direction of Prof. W. A. Rogers he gained considerable expe¬ 
rience as an observer w T ith the meridian circle. 
While studying with Dr. Wolcott Gibbs, of Harvard Col¬ 
lege, he prepared, from his own observations, a paper “ On 
61-Bull. Phil. Soc., Wash., Vol. 13. 
