Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Lockyer, Joseph Norman
LOCKYER, Sir JOSEPH NORMAN (1836–1920), astronomer, was born at Rugby 17 May 1836, the only son of Joseph Hooley Lockyer, physician, of Rugby, by his wife, Anne, daughter of Edward Norman, of Cosford, Warwickshire. He was educated at private schools and on the Continent, and at the age of twenty-one obtained a clerkship in the War Office. His marked ability gained for him in 1865 the office of editor of the Army Regulations. But he had already acquired, probably from his father, who founded a scientific and literary society in Rugby, a taste for science, especially astronomy. He bought a refracting telescope of 6¼ inches aperture, made by Thomas Cooke [q.v.], and began to study planetary surfaces. His first scientific paper, communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1863, gives a very accurate study of Mars as observed at the opposition of 1862.
In 1866 Lockyer attached a spectroscope to his 6¼ inch equatorial, observed the spectrum of a sun-spot, saw that it contained no bright lines and that certain dark lines were thickened, and thus obtained a decisive answer to the question, then under vigorous discussion, as to the cause of the relative darkness of a sun-spot. This was a pioneer observation in many ways. The actual projection of the sun's image on the slit of the spectroscope, so that the small area of a sun-spot could be isolated for observation, was new; for spectroscopy was in its infancy, and attention had previously been paid chiefly to stars and nebulae. This success was soon followed by another still more brilliant, obtained by applying the same procedure of isolation to the solar prominences. On this occasion (20 October 1868) honours were shared with the French astronomer, Dr. P. J. C. Janssen, whose observations, suggested to him in India by the total solar eclipse of 18 August 1868, were by a remarkable coincidence communicated to the Paris Academy of Sciences on the same day as those of Lockyer. The French government, however, recognized the great merit of both discoverers by striking a special medal in their honour in 1872.
Other discoveries by Lockyer soon followed, Other discoveries by Lockyer soon followed and two names coined by him at this time have passed into circulation as memorials of his pioneer work. One is ‘chromosphere’ for the envelope closely surrounding the sun, of which the prominences form a part: Lockyer announced its existence on 5 November 1868, and gave it this name; subsequent work has emphasized the importance of the chromosphere in the study of solar problems. The other name is ‘helium’ for a chemical element recognized by a special line (D3) detected by Lockyer in the sun's spectrum; the element was not at that time (1868) known to exist on earth, but it has since been discovered and found to play a fundamental part in physics and chemistry.
Thus by 1870 Lockyer had proved himself a capable government official and a scientist of great talent; so that he was appointed secretary to the royal commission on scientific instruction and the advancement of science (1870–1875), which recommended, inter alia, the establishment by the government of an observatory of solar physics. As a first step Lockyer was transferred from the War Office to the Science and Art Department at South Kensington (1875), and though at that time nothing was done on a great scale, facilities were provided for his work which he utilized with unfailing skill in many directions. He started, with a loan collection, what has become the science museum; he organized courses of astronomical teaching; and not only did he work hard and devotedly at the spectroscopic side of astronomy, but he inspired his assistants with his spirit. On the foundation of the Royal College of Science at South Kensington in 1890 Lockyer was appointed director of the new Solar Physics Observatory and professor of astronomical physics. He held this post until 1913.
Lockyer's influence on the course of scientific investigation extended beyond his immediate circle or time. It has been pointed out that to him is due ‘not only the idea, but also extended and elaborate studies, of the enhanced and super-enhanced lines of elements. … He tried to impress the idea that the enhanced lines are due to some proto-form or fractional part of chemical atoms’ [Philosophical Magazine, December 1922]. He also anticipated modern views of the course of stellar evolution. But in both cases his speculations were hampered by the limited knowledge of the time. His Meteoritic Hypothesis (1890)—propounding the wide generalization that the origin of all celestial bodies is to be assigned to meteor swarms—also suffered from imperfect information, so that when one or other of its supports gave way in the general advance of knowledge, the theory was no longer acceptable as a whole. But probably much of value will be found in its constituent parts.
Lockyer's activities were so wide that only brief mention can be made of some of them. His work on solar physics led him to make enterprising observations of total solar eclipses. In Recent and Coming Eclipses (1897) he gives interesting accounts of some of the official expeditions which he conducted, on which occasions he was very successful in utilizing the help offered by officers and men of the royal navy. He was convinced of the connexion, in some form, between solar activity and terrestrial weather, and in collaboration with his son, Dr. W. J. S. Lockyer, made extensive investigations into this matter. A visit to Egypt led him to suggest the possibility of dating Egyptian temples by their orientation considered in relation to the heavens of the past. In 1869, in co-operation with Mr. Alexander Macmillan, he established the journal Nature, which he edited until a few months before his death; it became an important organ of scientific advance. As president of the British Association meeting at Southport in 1903, he gave a stirring address on the need for the extension and better endowment of university teaching in science; and, following up these ideas, he founded the British Science Guild in 1905, with himself as chairman of committees. Finally, he was a successful popular lecturer and writer. The more important of Lockyer's numerous works not already mentioned are: Solar Physics (1873), The Chemistry of the Sun (1887), The Sun's Place in Nature (1897), Inorganic Evolution (1900).
Lockyer's work received the recognition which it deserved. In 1874 he was awarded the Rumford medal of the Royal Society, of which he had been elected a fellow in 1869, and in 1875 he received the Janssen medal of the Paris Academy of Sciences, of which he was elected a corresponding member in the same year. He was Rede lecturer at Cambridge in 1871, and Bakerian lecturer in 1874. In 1894 he received the C.B., and he was created K.C.B. in 1897.
Lockyer died 16 August 1920 at Salcombe Regis, Devon. With the help of some generous friends he had erected an observatory there in 1913, when the solar observatory was transferred, to his great disappointment, from South Kensington to Cambridge. A portrait medallion of him in the Salcombe Regis observatory was unveiled by the astronomer royal on 22 July 1922.
Lockyer married twice: first, in 1858 Winifred (died 1879), younger daughter of William James, of Trebenshon, near Abergavenny, by whom he had seven sons and two daughters; secondly, in 1903 Thomazine Mary, younger daughter of Samuel Woolcott Browne, of Bridgwater and Clifton, and widow of Bernard Edward Brodhurst, F.R.C.S. Of the sons only four survived him.
[Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. civ, A, 1923 (portrait); personal knowledge.]