Sir Robert Ball

The following is the transcript of a lecture given at a joint meeting of the BAA and SHA at the BMI in Birmingham in 2007, by Roger Jones, council member Society for the History of Astronomy.

This is a list of the Presidents of the BMI. Imagine in times past listening to Dickens, being educated by Huxley, serenaded by Sullivan and sermonised by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Of the other presidents listed here, many of them, their term of office complete … their duty done, probably had little more to do with the BMI.

NOT SO the man I’m going to talk about today. Robert Ball was involved with the Birmingham and Midland Institute for more than 30 years, lecturing here on many occasions during the late Victorian era and becoming its President in 1891. Our Society’s reference library opened here 2 years ago and was dedicated to Sir Robert Ball as a fitting tribute to his involvement with the Institute.

Born in Ireland in 1840, Robert Ball, had a privileged upbringing, with private schooling in England before attending Dublin’s Trinity College where he had a brilliant university career, gaining honours in mathematics and experimental physics. He graduated in 1865 but several years went by before he became an astronomer.  He had no formal astronomical training; his first practical experience came when he went to Birr Castle as tutor to the sons of the Earl of Rosse, where he also took charge of Rosse’s 72-inch reflector, the Leviathan of Parsonstown.

He then spent several years as professor of Mathematics at Dublin’s new Royal College of Science, when in 1874, at the comparatively young age of 32, he sought and obtained the Andrews chair of Astronomy at Trinity College. This appointment carried with it the position of Royal Astronomer of Ireland, and a move to Dunsink Observatory. He was there for 18 years, but in 1892 he came to England, to Cambridge University. He replaced John Couch Adams who had been Lowndean Professor and Observatory Director since the late 1850s. The vacancy was Ball’s chance to advance his career and his status in the scientific world...in a letter to his mother he pointed out that it was….

“ the highest scientific chair in England, if not in Europe, the Solar System, no … the Milky Way, indeed the highest in the whole Universe.” 

But what started him on this climb to the highest of scientific chairs?

And what induced him to devote so much time to lecturing?

To look for the answers we must first step back to the autumn of 1859.

Trinity College students were assembled for a meeting of the Dublin Philosophical Society.  The subject that evening was “The Gulf Stream”, and the lecturer was the 19 year old Robert Ball.  He must have impressed his audience as a year later his fellow students elected him President of the Society. They could not have guessed that he would go on to become one of the Victorian era’s greatest lecturers. 

His first lecture to a paying audience came 10 years later at the Belfast Athenaeum, and was entitled “Some Recent Astronomical Discoveries”. He was offered a fee, but said he was happy just to recoup his expenses of 14 shillings. We shall discover that in later years, he was not nearly so generous.

Prior to this he had ample opportunity to hone his presentation skills. He was an active member of the Dublin Literary Society, and the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland where his father, a naturalist, had been secretary.  He was often called upon to address the meetings. The Zoological Society held breakfast meetings in Phoenix Park and in later years Ball would cycle down the hill from Dunsink Observatory on one of these ….. a Facile.

He was also a frequent guest of William Stokes, the eminent surgeon, of stethoscope fame, whose residence at 5 Merrion Square Dublin was described as the centre of all the wit and learning that Ireland possessed. Ball was to meet many influential people at these dinner parties.

 A few weeks after his Belfast lecture, he was invited to talk to the Royal Dublin Society. He drew on his experiences at Birr Castle and expounded on “Nebulae” as seen through the 72” Leviathan. He illustrated the talk by showing his audience an enlarged copy of the magnificent engraving of the Orion Nebula. Lord Rosse had painstakingly drawn this over many years and was so proud of it that he had it permanently engraved by James Basire, and sent copies to observatories around the world. Ball enlightened his Dublin audience by telling them that the nebulae were so far away that if one were to be immediately struck from existence by an omnipotent force, posterity for many generations thereafter might still observe, measure and draw the object long after it had ceased to exist!

Ball’s first venture into book publishing came as a result of the Willis apparatus. Macmillan & Co. agreed to publish a book based on the experiments which prompted several enquiries, the most important of which came from here at The Midland Institute in Birmingham.

This enquiry in the summer of 1874, included a request for him to lecture on mechanics, but it came at a time when Robert Ball was making a career change. He had been appointed Andrews Professor of Astronomy at Dublin University and Director of Dunsink Observatory. He felt a little awkward lecturing on mechanics at a time when he had decided to devote his time and energy to astronomy.

Not easily dissuaded, Mr Alfred Cresswell, the BMI director in charge of the lecture department, suggested to Robert that he should spend a week in Birmingham, give two lectures on Astronomy and between times, teach the staff at the Institute all he could about the Willis apparatus.  Ball agreed, and that was how he got started as a public lecturer. It was 1874 and the subject of his first lecture was to be the great event of that year, the Transit of Venus.  He prepared many diagrams and slides, including one showing how eight orbital revolutions of the Earth corresponded to thirteen orbits of Venus.

He quoted the work of Halley, gave details of the great expedition of Captain Cook to the South Seas, and explained why the next series of transits would not occur until the beginning of the next millennium.

Before his concluding lecture at the Institute that week which was to be “A Night at Lord Rosse’s Telescope”, he visited Hanley and lectured to the Potteries Mechanic’s Institute, and went to lecture at Gloucester, before returning to Dunsink. So ended the very first of his many lecture tours.

I have learned that when researching one must always try to get back to original sources and not rely on what someone else has written, even though what I have just told you comes from Robert Ball’s own notes. Recently in Birmingham Central reference library I found the BMI notices for their 1874/5 lecture season. Surprisingly there was no mention of The Transit of Venus lecture. A Night at Lord Rosse’s Telescope was scheduled for Monday 22 March 1875 with Ball’s second lecture on the following Monday entitled The Pendulum. More puzzling is that according to the local press, on those actual dates someone else was lecturing to the BMI members and I have yet to find evidence of Ball’s visit. Back to the Library I think for another look.

He became a regular visitor to the Midlands and to the BMI in particular. He had the honour of giving the inaugural lecture at their new hall when it opened in October 1881. The lecture was poetically titled “A Glimpse through the Corridors of Time”. It was a resounding success. It was immediately put into print and published in 2 parts in Nature, who according to its editor, sold out both editions on the strength of it.  It was also published in pamphlet form by Macmillan, and generated a fair amount of correspondence for Ball, as some of his statements about “time and tides” met with disagreement.  The lecture was based on the fact that “The tides are increasing the length of the Earth’s day”. Ball talked about a time when “the earth spun round in a few hours and the moon was quite close to it; it is not difficult to imagine” he said “how the earth and moon were originally one body”

One of his close friends and the renowned expert on the subject, Sir George Darwin, did not entirely agree with him, though Professor George Minchin, the famous geologist, said “I cannot refrain from calling your Birmingham lecture a singularly beautiful and instructive one ………. The whole story is the most wonderful imaginable”. 

It would seem that although several eminent scientists had been working on tidal evolution for many years, none had taken all the known facts and woven them into the story that Ball was now presenting to the BMI. This was Ball’s most important lecture at that time and many lucrative deals with book and magazine publishers were secured on the strength of it.

A year prior to this he’d begun a fruitful relationship with the Gilchrist Educational Trust, part of whose remit was to provide lectures throughout the British Isles, particularly in small towns and villages.  The lectures were always science based, and those on astronomy were given by Richard Proctor. In late 1879 Ball was approached by the Trust who told him that Proctor was about to embark on a world lecturing tour, which would keep him abroad for two or three years. Robert Ball agreed to take his place and his first Gilchrist tour took him to Lancashire and Yorkshire, to the towns of Rochdale, Accrington, Huddersfield, Preston and Bury. 

The Gilchrist lecture tours suited Ball as he was able to leave the organizing to the Trust. All he had to do was turn up at the venue some twenty minutes before the start, to set up his slides etc.  He almost always lectured to packed houses; Gilchrist would arrange 800-seat venues wherever possible. Tickets for Ball’s lectures were snapped up well in advance, and there were many stories of ticket touts selling them at several times their face value.

The Gilchrist Lectures were designed for the working classes, and in the early days, local dignitaries worried that they would be poorly attended.  Ball recounted that on his first visit to Blackburn, the Mayor was very concerned that there would be a poor turnout. To make matters worse, it was raining heavily.  Ball, in his easy-going Irish manner, tried to cheer up his host, but to no avail.  On reaching the hall, in the torrential rain, not a soul was to be seen, with the exception of two policemen standing in the doorway. 

The Mayor exclaimed in desperation “This is a total failure!”  He asked one of the policeman “Has no-one turned up?”. The constable replied “The place is packed, and we had to turn away two hundred half an hour ago”. 

Ball sometimes found himself caught up in the crowds. Arriving at the Free Church in St John’s Street, Goole, there was a huge crowd waiting outside.  A passer-by told him it was no use trying to get in as it was a sell-out.  Ball eventually got to a side door where they were still letting a few people squeeze in. When he tried to gain entry, the doorman asked him for his penny. Ball said “I’m the lecturer”, to which the doorman replied “Go on, I’ve heard that one before!” He eventually got in, and lectured to the audience on “Other Worlds”. 

During his talk, he discussed observatories and mentioned that as his train approached the town he had noticed a very tall building near the station and thought to himself “what a splendid observatory they must have here” Of course everyone, including Ball, knew there was no observatory, it was the water tower. Much laughter from his audience.

And in trying to convey to the audience the distance to the nearest star, he alluded to Henry Wilson, the chairman, who was manager of the  Lancashire and Yorkshire railway.  Ball suggested that if he were ever to extend the railway to Alpha Centauri, he recommended that the fare should be calculated at 100 miles per penny.  How much would this immense journey cost?  Well, take to the booking office 5000 carts each carrying a ton of sovereigns, in total £700,000,000, an amount then equal to the National Debt. Would they get any change?  There would be a long wait whilst the clerk counted the money and they should not be too surprised when they were asked for another £103 million before getting the ticket.

Whilst in Goole he met Fielden Sutcliffe, an old Dublin college friend and he had an interesting tour of the docks, where Sutcliffe was chief engineer. He saw how the coal was brought down in barges and then hoisted bodily out of the water to be unloaded onto waiting ships.  Ball took a keen interest in all that was going on around him, and on several occasions descended into the depths of the earth to see the workings at the coalface. 

These first hand experiences helped illuminate many of his lectures. A visit to Bristol, for example, could not go by without watching the tide come in from a vantage point on the Clifton suspension bridge.  A spectacle he used to illustrate his Time and Tide lectures.

Ball’s lectures were well planned affairs, but occasionally a mishap would occur. He often toured with two lectures, alternating between towns, but taking with him the slides for both. On reaching the end of a tour in the North, he lent a box of slides to a friend, thinking he had no further use for them.  On arrival at Leeds railway station in the late afternoon, he found the town bill-posted with the announcement that he was to lecture on “Krakatoa”. These were the very slides he had loaned to his friend. His remaining slides were for his “Moon” lecture, not altogether appropriate for the advertised event.  He consulted with the secretary of the Institution and decided that Krakatoa was what was expected and he would make do with what he had.  He asked if a terrestrial globe could be obtained, and a very large one was found in the basement. It had scarcely reached ground level, when it fell with a loud crash, back into the basement, breaking in two.  Ball however used this incident to good effect as he told his audience that the globe, like Krakatoa, had suffered the effects of an unforeseen local earthquake.

Well, back here to Birmingham  …. In 1891 Robert Ball accepted the Presidency of the Midland Institute, and the subject of his presidential address was spectroscopy and entitled “The Movement of the Stars”.  He enthralled his audience with the very latest advances in the subject, with the breaking news that proper stellar motion could now be detected instantly. He praised the work of Professor Huggins and acknowledged the recent discoveries at Lick and Potsdam.

 In summing up he said that the science of the 19^th Century seems destined to be famous through the ages. To biologists it would be the century of natural selection; to physicists it would be the century of the spectroscope. He ended his address with the very apt phrase …     “Let there be Light”.

His lecture tours were also opportunities to satisfy his own enquiring mind and quest for knowledge.  Not for him the dingy hotel rooms of provincial towns. He much preferred to stay at the home of some local dignitary, where he could be assured of good food and company.

Following his first BMI lecture he stayed with Follett Osler at 86 Harborne Road. Osler was the famous glass manufacturer, whose Crystal Fountain was the centrepiece of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Some of you may have seen the clock on the staircase here which Osler used to regulate time in Birmingham, before GMT was introduced. Later that week he moved round the corner into Augustus Road, where he was the guest of Osler’s close friend, Alfred Elkington. His Newhall Street factory in Birmingham employed 800 men, and produced all types of electro-plated wares.  In the 1950s the factory became the main building for the Museum of Science and Industry.  Another Birmingham friend with whom he stayed in later years was Robert Lawson Tait, the eminent surgeon and gynaecologist who once performed a series of 116 operations without a single fatality. Known as the Father of Modern Surgery, for one whose purpose in life was to keep people alive, he had a morbid interest in the Whitechapel murders, and one wonders what Sir Robert thought of his Jack the Ripper theories. Apparently Tait believed the Ripper was a woman who worked in a slaughterhouse.

Ball gave many lectures around Birmingham over the years; one evening he might be found addressing the 50 members of the very exclusive Vesey Club in Sutton Coldfield where he was also President, whilst the next he would be in Walsall with an audience of 1000 working men. He also lectured in Wolverhampton, and would stay at this fine early Georgian residence, Old Fallings Hall, just outside the town.  It was the home of his sister, Amelia Charlotte following her marriage to William Millington MD, a prominent local physician.

Occasionally he would be entertained by notables like the Marquis of Ripon; whom he stayed with on a number of occasions, at a time when the Marquis was Grandmaster of the Freemasons.  In St Helens his hosts were the Pilkingtons, and he was fascinated by his tour of their glassworks. No doubt whilst in Birmingham he would also have visited Chance Brothers, though I have yet to find evidence of this. His interest in glass was not just astronomical; for many years he was scientific advisor to the Commissioners of the Irish Lights Board, and of course Chance were the main supplier of optical systems for lighthouses around the world. 

Every summer he would join the members of the Irish Lights Board on a 3 week steamship cruise round the Irish coast, examining the lighthouses.  Ball, as scientific advisor to the board carried out many tests with gas, oil and electricity to see which gave the best light in different conditions. One of the main problems was fog, and in later years he enlisted the help of Ernest Rutherford who at the time was experimenting with electromagnetic waves.

Ball’s father was a noted botanist and instilled in Robert a love of all the flora to be found in Ireland. Ball would make frequent trips ashore to gather samples, armed with a well thumbed copy of .. “Bentham’s Handbook of British Flora”.

I should mention here that Sir Robert was a very keen photographer, and liked to show off his slides to appreciative audiences, particularly when his subject was the Irish coastline. A selection of the hundreds of photos he took was  published in 2003 in a book called “For the Safety of All”.  Particularly interesting are the photos of the construction of the Fastnet light, which Ball described as “the most beautiful light in the world”

During his lectures Ball would describe in simple terms the workings of the Universe. When describing solar energy, he said that if the Sun expended £10,000,000 of heat the Earth would get just a penny’s worth.  He would tell his audiences that if all the coal on Earth was burnt at once it would not give out as much heat as the Sun does in 1/10th of a second.  Was he perhaps predicting solar panels when he stated that if you could collect the heat over 10 sq.yds. it  would power a 100hp motor?

His lectures were many and varied … Here are a few of the many titles.

Sir Robert was not very tolerant of disruptions from latecomers, who were often the more well to do, who invariably occupied the 6d seats in the front rows. He was always pleased to have a good chairman who could rattle on for ten minutes at the start, whilst the latecomers got settled.  He was sometimes accused by these same persons in the front row that he spoke too loudly.  He would say that he did so in case there was a deaf old man in the back row who had paid his penny and was entitled to hear what he had to say.

Nor would he venture too far from home to lecture unless he was being well paid. There were often complaints about his high fees; some venues even thought he should impart his knowledge for free.  His stock answer was that he had a wife and 5 children to support, and had no intention of travelling half way across the country unless he was suitably rewarded.  But did he make any money at it? Were his earnings from lectures greater than those from his books or his academic career?  In a letter to Dr Rambaut he said “Lecturing is a more permanent source of income than writing, for the same lecture will be available scores of times, while there is (or ought to be) a limit to the number of times the same thing can be written. Then, too, lecturing is an amusing occupation, a rest and a change.”  I’ve seen one of Ball’s letters where he confirms a lecture fee of 15 guineas.  He seems to have done quite well; when he died his estate was valued at £12000, an amount equivalent to almost three quarters of a million pounds today.

Although most of his public lectures were in towns and villages up and down the country, he was also a prominent speaker in the capital, where his most notable and well remembered appearances were at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures.  He was first invited to give these lectures by Warren De la Rue, which he accepted but not without some misgivings.

He was in awe of those who had preceded him; men like Faraday whose rule was that there should be one experiment every two minutes. These lectures lasted two weeks and he was asked to repeat them 5 times between 1881 and 1900. Intended for children, the adults often outnumbered them three to one. Ball would say to the youngsters “Well children, you and I will not mind all these grown-ups…. if they will only behave themselves properly”   These lectures formed the basis of his book Starland.

He was often asked if he ever tired of lecturing, to which he would reply … ask a good golfer if he gets weary hole after hole … Ask W G if he ever tired of scoring century after century.  When you have some skill in your art … the exercise of it is delightful.  In the early part of his career, he would lecture any day of the week, but after several years, and partly due to the protests from the Lords Day Observance Society, he gave up Sunday lectures to stay at home.

He did however once lecture on Christmas Day.  It was on one of his American tours and the Rev. Newell Hillis, engaged him to speak to 2500 young people at the Plymouth church in Brooklyn.  He regaled his audience with “Time & Tide and Fire-Mist”.

His oratory alone would have kept his audiences spellbound, but Ball was also an expert in the use of visual aids, particularly the magic lantern.  This would occasionally result in problems as we learn from the account in the Walsall Advertiser of the disruption to his first lecture in the town ….

“The enjoyment of the Literary Institute lecture by Sir Robert Ball on Wednesday last was much interfered with by the incompetent mis-management of the gas. The members of the Institute must look to Mr Alfred Stanley as responsible for this. Never did an audience, however, behave better under prevailing circumstances.  May Walsall audiences ever conduct themselves without any approach to panic, under whatever circumstances may arise.” I’ve no doubt Mr Stanley, a local button manufacturer, was very embarrassed about this.

Ball only ever missed one lecture, and that was also in Walsall. He had been due to speak at 8.00pm on 30 Oct 1895, but at 5.00pm Mr W Henry Robinson, the Institute Secretary (himself a fellow of the RAS) received a telegram, which read. “Our train has just returned to Cambridge#. Line washed away#. Impossible to reach Walsall tonight#. Very sorry for inconvenience. Ball”

The chairman told a disappointed audience that “the stars in their courses had fought against the astronomer”. Ball was to have stayed that evening with the local vicar, who at less than an hour’s notice, agreed to step in and lecture to 1100 people on English church architecture. Not quite what they were expecting.

During my research I came across the programs of the Walsall Literary Institute from the 1880s till 1906. Ball lectured here on 9 occasions, and was the Institute’s President in 1898. He also had the honour of being the first person to lecture in Walsall’s new town hall.

We have heard of the problems with “the gas” in connection with the lanterns, and he relied on slides and apparatus of various sorts to enliven the proceedings. 

In those days many lecturers cursed the lanternist, who would frequently mix up the slides or show them before the lecturer was ready. Ball was more philosophical; saying that you could not expect from the lanternist who was paid only a few pennies for an evening’s work, what you would expect from the lecturer, who if he was someone of Ball’s stature commanded high fees and expenses.

Writing again to Dr Rambaut in 1899 he said “Unless I warn him beforehand, the man at the lantern will probably make the moon go round the earth as if he was grinding coffee for a wager!”   He would often instruct his lanternist as follows …. “There are eight ways of putting a slide into a lantern …..  seven of which are wrong!”   One of his lectures, “A Universe in Motion” involved the use of a number of elaborate mechanical slides, and for this he would often enlist the services of a Mr James W Garbutt, whose skill at the lantern Ball very much appreciated.  Garbutt  was a slide manufacturer from Leeds and was the official lanternist for the Gilchrist Lectures in the North.

Lanterns were not his only problem.  There were the hecklers, especially the “flat-earth men”. John Hampden was one of them, who claimed that Ball relied on the baseless conjectures of heathen astrologers to support his views. On another occasion he said he would attend Ball’s next lecture stating “I consider such monstrous lies perfectly scandalous. I will expose you, never fear!”    On another occasion, a writer inquired “Must not a lecture on Invisible stars be about as entertaining as a concert of inaudible music?

Signed “An Unbeliever” PS----I shall be there”

Ball’s maxim in such cases was a poetic line from Tennyson…

“The noblest answer unto such, is perfect stillness when they brawl”

Apart from the Gilchrist lectures, which were organised for him, most of his platform engagements required a vast amount of correspondence, so much so that by 1900 he had 30 to 40 volumes on his shelves devoted entirely to lectures.  Into each volume he would paste letters of invitation and acceptance, his requirements as to lantern, blackboard etc, hospitality letters and poster announcements, Bradshaw’s railway timetable, lecture ticket, press cuttings and letters of thanks.

His family would sometimes poke fun at his “method”, but he would retort that successful people made fortunes “by minding their own business”.  For many years his papers were kept in order by his daughter Minnie. His diaries contain amusing notes about various venues …. Be careful in Manchester … they get bored after 75 minutes.  Perhaps that is why he declined, when asked to chair the Northwest board of the BAA.

It would seem that hotels he stayed in would have to frequently replenish their stocks of guest stationery as we can see here. Ball using notepaper from the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay to reply to a lecture invitation … Newquay crossed out and Cambridge inserted.

His lectures were not confined to astronomy; Ball was first and foremost a mathematician and he would give lectures to students on his Theory of Screws.  These were not lectures for the masses; Ball was more than satisfied if he had as many as three students turn up to hear him speak. Now some of you may be wondering what this “screw” business was all about..........I confess I know very little, but I have read and I quote: Ball’s Treatise on the Theory of Screws is the definitive reference on screw theory. It gives a very complete geometrical account of the problems of small movements in rigid dynamics. His son once asked him to explain the theory to him.  The Lowndean Professor replied “If I were to begin speaking now, and continued to expound for about six months without interruption, you might have some faint glimmering of what it means!” Ball worked on and refined this theory for more than 40 years; it is still referred to today.

In August 1884 Ball made his first transatlantic trip, under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Also on the tour were John Couch Adams, Sir Oliver Lodge, George Darwin and Lord Rosse. All were to lecture at McGill University in Montreal. The Times in an article prior to the visit said: ‘Professor Ball, the witty and eloquent Astronomer Royal for Ireland, will deliver the popular lecture - par excellence.’ His agent in the United States secured venues in Boston for Ball to give a series of lectures. Ball asked for £40 per lecture; which he received, less the agent’s 10%.

 Leaving Montreal in September he crossed the border into the United States, and gave a useful talk on Screws to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For this lecture he used his newly acquired Cylindroid, which Howard Grubb had made especially for him. Ball’s 6 Boston lectures were reviewed in the Boston Herald, which reported: ‘He has not quite the oratorical ability of Prof. Langley, and suffers from a slight impediment to his speech, but he has a smooth clear voice, with a use of it, at times, quite clergymanic.’  When Ball read this he said: ‘I must try and correct these trifles’. Among the regular attendees at his Boston lectures was the octogenarian Alvan Clark, who spoke to Ball about the trouble they were having getting glass for the 36” Lick refractor.

Ball was an expert speaker; it is said that he never used notes. When asked about this he would reply ‘How can a lecturer expect an audience to remember his lecture if he is unable to recollect it himself.’ But in his early lectures he would often hesitate and stammer, even losing his train of thought on occasion. However, on his first US tour he decided to write out his lectures in full and to read from the manuscript.

He repeated each lecture on so many occasions that eventually he knew them off by heart. Initially, though, he read them as he had written them, almost word for word.

This was the first of several visits across the Atlantic; his next one in 1887 was at the request of Percival Lowell, to lecture at his Institute in Boston.  He must have had remarkable stamina to keep up this seemingly endless round of lecture tours. His busy schedule can be seen from this extract from his 1893 diary.

It was his trip to the States in 1901 that was to be his most successful; with 45 lectures in 11 weeks. He travelled out on the White Star liner SS Cymric. In a hectic first round he completed 24 lectures in 29 days.  This tour was arranged by New York impresario Major Pond, and Ball travelled up the east coast and throughout the mid-west, visiting more than 20 cities including Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Washington, and of course New York.

It was on one of his earlier trips that he mentions his regret at contributing to the demise of the buffalo in North America.  His many hours of nocturnal observations at Birr and Dunsink taught him the necessity of wrapping up warm; so he purchased for £7 a buffalo coat, complete with cap and gaiters, which no doubt made him the envy of his colleagues.

During the mid 1890s he was a regular visitor to Switzerland where he lectured at the Grindelwald conferences and to visitors on Lunn’s “10 guinea Swiss Tours”

Occasionally he was favoured with a captive audience, notably on his sea voyages.  He lectured to the passengers and crew on one of his transatlantic trips and in 1895 aboard the SS Norse King, his audience was bound for Norway to view the Total eclipse.  No doubt his enthusiasm about the forthcoming event turned to disappointment when the 106 seconds of totality were spoilt by cloud cover.  When ridiculed about lecturing on an eclipse he had not seen, he would say “It is no worse than Nansen lecturing about the North Pole when he had never been there”.

Two years later whilst on holiday in Devon he wrote to his son …..

Dearest Bill

If you want free tickets for your friends to hear a lecture of mine, now is their chance.  Let them hurry up and commit bigamy, or arson, or  any really good felony short of actual murder and they will have a free ticket, indeed a compulsory ticket forthwith. I shall have both clergymen and lawyers in my audience. On Friday I lecture to the convicts at His Majesty’s Prison on Dartmoor !   Now you couldn’t get a more captive audience than that. This was one of the few occasions when he was unable to use the magic lantern. Basil Thompson, the Dartmoor Governor would not allow 900 prisoners to assemble in  a darkened hall.

When his repertory was complete he was indifferent as to which lecture he gave to any particular audience. He once told an enquirer  “I can congeal you with the “Ice Age” or burst you up with the thunders of Krakatoa.  I can tell you whoppers about “Time and Tide” or petrify you with a burst of eloquence about “Invisible Stars”.  And I usually put the greatest rot into a lecture about “Other Worlds”.

Not surprisingly he was sometimes called to speak on other matters.  In 1907, Andrew Carnegie was organizing an International Peace Congress in the States prior to a similar event in The Hague. He invited Ball, along with other high profile celebrities including Elgar, Earl Grey and William Stead.  The Congress took place in New York and Pittsburgh. I call this “Spot the Astronomer”

Not surprisingly he was sometimes called to speak on other matters.  In 1907, Andrew Carnegie was organizing an International Peace Congress in the States prior to a similar event in The Hague. He invited Ball, along with other high profile celebrities including Elgar, Earl Grey and William Stead.  The Congress took place in New York and Pittsburgh. I call this “Spot the Astronomer”

His lectures were based on scientific facts, but he would often be asked what his religious views were, particularly with regard to the Creation. It seems that Ball believed only what could be proven by science. Occasionally he would be drawn on the subject and one day was asked if he thought the New Jerusalem was perhaps on the far side of the moon.  Oh no he said, it is much more likely to be on the far side of Mars. 

On a more serious note, although he was a regular churchgoer throughout his life, in unpublished correspondence with Sir Oliver Lodge, also a BMI president,  he confesses a lack of religious faith, which he even concealed from his wife. Apparently he just could not reconcile the vastness of the universe, evolution, natural selection and his own scientific and mathematical theories of creation with a spiritual God and Christian teaching. This troubled him deeply and even his son chose not to reveal it in his biography.

Robert Ball was not one to publicly court controversy...  He always gave a clear and convincing story to his audience,......... who went away assured that what he had told them was in agreement with current scientific thought and practice. ............ In private however and with his fellow scientists,...... he knew there was much conflict and he would take sides with one party or another,......... but never allow his public to hear the opposing view...........

Let us look for a moment at Sir Robert the celebrity. Once established in Cambridge in 1892 he did enjoy something of a celebrity lifestyle. Browsing the Times archives I found more than 300 entries, There were many Court Circular notices of his various public appearances, including his attendance at the Westminster Abbey funerals of Gladstone and Tennyson. Hardly a week went by when he was not attending some meeting or other.

He accepted many dinner invitations from the various City livery companies including the Spectacle Makers, the Fishmongers, the Weavers, the Salters, the Playing Card Manufacturers, the Clothiers, the Barbers, and the Stationers. No doubt this was to help solicit funds for Cambridge University. He greatly enjoyed these social events, but one gets the impression that he often overdid it. 

If a Society meeting was without a chairman, Sir Robert would step in and he would often be the person seconding a particular motion, if he was not the proposer himself. His memberships extended far beyond the prestigious Royal Society, at whose banquets he regularly spoke. His name can be linked to the Savage Club, the Research Defence Association, the Athenaeum, the British Association, the Mathematical Association and many others.

Also recorded are his overseas lecture tours, which I originally thought he had arranged himself. Not one to miss a free trip, one of his lecture tours to the US was built around his attendance at Yale’s 200^th Anniversary; Sir Robert being Cambridge’s sponsored representative.  His other US tours were funded by Percival Lowell and the British Association. He had a great admiration for all things American, and July 4^th would often find him at the US Embassy in Hyde Park Gate for the celebrations.

He got immense pleasure from attending the opening of new establishments, and the unveiling of plaques, busts and portraits to which he had invariably subscribed. He was often the honoured guest; in Bath for example at William Hershel’s house in New King St. where he unveiled a bronze plaque. Whilst at Cambridge he sat on many committees including the one that made the annual June trip to Greenwich to carry out the “Visitation”. He was a regular ‘visitor’ to Greenwich for almost 20 years.

One of his proudest moments was attendance at the Investiture of the Prince of Wales at St James Palace in 1896. One often reads in the Court Circular about Royalty leaving London for Balmoral or Windsor. Sir Robert was not to be outdone. I have found these words on the Court pages ‘Sir Robert Ball leaves London for Dublin’.

Here are just a few of the entries for 1906 ….

On their own these 300 news clippings cast Sir Robert in a new light. Less an astronomer and lecturer, more a wannabe celebrity. No doubt his Irish manner and accent, his wit and his humour helped him considerably in this respect. Certainly in his 20 years at Cambridge, wining and dining with the great and the good must have been more appealing than tutoring or overseeing his assistants at the Observatory. 

All that aside, here then was probably Britain’s most popular astronomer. For 35 years, from 1874 to 1909, Sir Robert Ball virtually personified astronomy to the English-speaking world. He communicated astronomy to the public in an optimistic and positive way, making it appear a worthwhile pursuit. This was also crucial for scientists in other disciplines, at a time when the issue of endowed research was becoming increasingly important. Despite being well respected at all levels, from the factory workers of Northern England, to the patrons of London’s finest clubs and learned societies, he was occasionally held in contempt by some of the scientific establishment.

They would grumble about his ‘utterances’ to the press; and some of his written work was criticised in terms such as: ‘This is not what is expected of the Lowndean Professor.’

But Ball’s unfading reputation will not just rest on his achievements as a lecturer and populariser of science, great as they were, or even as an astronomer, in which capacity he lacked the advantages of professional training. It must also be based on his work as a great mathematician, which was his most absorbing interest, and to which he devoted much of his leisure. His mathematical accomplishments were acknowledged by E T Whittaker, who ranked Ball as one of the two or three greatest mathematicians of his generation.

The total number of lectures he gave is not known, but between 1874 and 1884 he gave 700, and he lectured continuously for the next 20 years. He probably lectured publicly more than 2,500 times. It is estimated that, not counting the many thousands of students and fellow scientists who heard him speak, at public venues he lectured to well over one million people. Ball had an inspiring personality; his voice, manner and good humour excited interest and enthusiasm in his audiences.

His Royal Astronomical Society obituary recalled: ‘The great popularity he attained is convincing evidence of the wide interest in astronomy which he thus excited. It is common knowledge how small the influence may be which affects a receptive mind, and leads it to further study and development, and in this way Ball’s lectures cannot but have given a strong impulse in this country to the advancement of the study of astronomy.’  

His books on popular astronomy numbered thirteen and most of them ran to several editions. “Story of the Heavens” was his best seller and the 5th edition of his “Popular Guide to the Heavens” was published as late as 1955. We have most of these volumes in our library here at the BMI.

Ball entered the second decade of the 20th Century in failing health, suffering from diabetes. He gave his last public lecture on 8th November 1910 at Westminster’s Caxton Hall in aid of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

In 1912 he made his final trip with the Lights Board around his beloved Irish coast. As Ball took his last look at the Fastnet light, his thoughts must have turned to those passengers who a few weeks before also took their last look at the light as they sailed for New York on the ill-fated Titanic.  Ball would learn later that William Stead, who I mentioned earlier, was one of those unlucky passengers. Just as he had done with Ball a few years previously, he was on his way to speak at a Carnegie Peace Convention.

During the final 12 months of his life he was for the most part confined to his house in the Cambridge Observatory grounds.  He died on 25 November 1913,..... aged 73........ and is buried in St Giles cemetery, just a few hundred yards from the observatory. .......near to his predecessor, John Couch Adams. On a previous Society visit to Cambridge we took his granddaughter and great granddaughter to see his last resting place. Angela Ambrose and Pam Morris.

At the end of many of his lectures Ball loved to quote the poets.  “An Evening with the Telescope” concluded by impressing on his audience the vast size of the Universe and the number of stars it contained.

I will end as he did by reciting these lines from his fellow countryman, William Allingham ….

                   But number every grain of sand,

                   Wherever salt wave touches land,

                   Number in single drops the sea,

                   Number the leaves on every tree,

                   Number earth’s living creatures all,

                   That run, that fly, that swim, that crawl;

                   Of sands, drops, leaves, and lives, the count

                   Adds up into one vast amount,

                   And then for every separate one,

                   Of all those, let a flaming sun,

                   Whirl in the boundless skies, with each

                   Its massy planets, to outreach

                   All sight, all thought; for all We see

                   Encompassed with infinity,

                   Is but an island..

Long May he be Remembered