COMMUNICATIONS 
TO THE 
MONTHLY MEETINGS, 
1868 . 
January 7.—J. Ford, Esq., read some “Notes on Abraham 
Sharp and his equatorial.” He said that Abraham Sharp, an 
eminent mathematician, mechanist, and astronomer, descended 
from an ancient family at Little Horton, near Bradford, was born 
about the year 1651. He was put apprentice to a merchant at 
Manchester, but his genius led him strongly to the study of 
mathematics, both theoretical and practical. By the consent there¬ 
fore of his master, he quitted business and removed to Liverpool, 
where he studied mathematics, astronomy, &c., and where for a 
subsistence, he opened a school and taught writing and accounts, &c. 
He had not been long at Liverpool when he fell in with a merchant 
from London, in whose house the astronomer, Mr. Flamsteed, then 
lodged. To become acquainted with this eminent man, Mr. Sharp 
engaged with the merchant as a book-keeper, and soon contracted 
an intimate friendship with Mr. Flamsteed, by whose interest and 
recommendation he obtained a more jDi’ofitable employment in the 
dockyard at Chatham, where he continued till his friend and patron, 
knowing his great merit in astronomy and mechanics, called him to 
his assistance in contriving, adapting, and fitting up the astronom¬ 
ical apparatus in the Eoyal Observatory at Greenwich, which had 
been recently built, about 1676. He was principally employed in 
the construction of the mural arch, which in fourteen months he 
fiuished, greatly to the satisfaction of Mr. Flamsteed. According 
to Mr. Smeaton, this was the first good instrument of the land, and 
Mr. Sharp the first artist who cut accurate divisions upon astro¬ 
nomical instruments. When it was constructed Mr. Flamsteed was 
thirty, and Mr. Sharp twenty-five years of age. These two friends 
