damage from heat and damp. A drawing from the best preserved plate by Miss Violet Common was published as a frontispiece to the ‘Observatory’ for March 1890, with a note by Mr. W. H. Wesley on the character of the depicted corona.
Perry's character was remarkable for simplicity and earnestness. He had the transparent candour of a child; his unassuming kindliness inspired universal affection. In conversation he was genial and humorous, and he enjoyed nothing more than a share in the Stonyhurst games, exulting with boyish glee over a top score at cricket. Yet his dedication to duty was absolute, his patience inexhaustible. Enthusiastic astronomer as he was, he was still before all things a priest. He preached well, and his last two sermons were delivered in French to the convicts of Salut. The astronomical efficiency of the Stonyhurst observatory was entirely due to him, his efforts in that direction being rendered possible by the acquisition in 1867 of an 8-inch equatorial by Troughton and Simms. Various other instruments were added, including the 5-inch Clark refractor used by Prebendary T. W. Webb [q. v.] Two small spectroscopes were purchased in 1870; a six-prism one by Browning was in constant use from October 1879 for the measurement of the solar chromosphere and prominences; and a fine Rowland's grating, destined for systematically photographing the spectra of sun-spots, was mounted by Hilger in 1888. In 1880 Perry set on foot the regular delineation by projection of the solar surface, and the drawings, executed by Mr. McKeon on a scale of ten inches to the diameter, form a series of great value, extending over nineteen years. By their means Perry discovered in 1881, independently of Trouvelot, the phenomenon of ‘veiled spots;’ and he made the Stonyhurst methods of investigating the solar surface the subject of a Friday evening discourse at the Royal Institution in May 1889, as well as of a paper read before the Royal Astronomical Society on 14 June 1889 (Memoirs, xlix. 273). But while his chief energies were directed to solar physics, his plan of work included also observations of Jupiter's satellites, comets, and occultations, besides the maintenance of a regular watch for shooting stars. The magnetic and meteorological record was moreover extended and improved.
His popularity as a lecturer was great. He drew large audiences in Scotland and the north of England, discoursed in French to the scientific society of Brussels in 1876 and 1882 (Annales, tomes i., vi.), and to the Catholic scientific congress at Paris in 1888, delivered addresses at South Kensington in 1876, in Dublin in 1886, at Cambridge, and before the British Association at Montreal in 1884. His success was in part due to the extreme carefulness of his preparation. Thoroughness and uncompromising industry were indeed conspicuous in every detail of his scientific work.
Perry served during his later years on the council of the Royal Astronomical society, on the committee of solar physics, and on the committee of the British Association for the reduction of magnetic observations. He was a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, of the Physical Society of London, and delivered his inaugural address as president of the Liverpool Astronomical Society almost on the eve of his final departure from England. The Academia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei at Rome, the Société Scientifique of Brussels, and the Société Géographique of Antwerp enrolled him among their members, and he received an honorary degree of D.Sc. from the Royal University of Ireland in 1886. He took part in the international photographic congresses at Paris in 1887 and 1889. Numerous contributions from him were published in the ‘Memoirs’ and ‘Notices’ of the Royal Astronomical Society, in the ‘Proceedings’ of the Royal Society, in the ‘Observatory,’ ‘Copernicus,’ ‘Nature,’ and the ‘British Journal of Photography.’ He had some slight preparations for an extensive work on solar physics. A 15-inch refractor, purchased from Sir Howard Grubb with a fund raised by public subscription, was erected as a memorial to him in the Stonyhurst observatory in November 1893.
[Father Perry, the Jesuit Astronomer, by the Rev. A. L. Cortie, S.J., 2nd ed. 1890 (with portrait); Monthly Notices Royal Astron. Soc. 1. 168; Proc. Royal Soc. vol. xlviii. p. xii; Nature, xli. 279; R. P. Thirion, Revue des Questions Scientifiques, Brussels, 20 Jan. 1890; The Observatory, xiii. 62, 81, 259; Sidereal Messenger, No. 85 (with portrait); Men of the Time, 12th ed. 1887; Times, 8 Jan. 1890; Tablet, 11 and 25 Jan. 1 and 22 Feb. 1890.]
PERRY, Sir THOMAS ERSKINE (1806–1882), Indian judge, born at Wandlebank House, Wimbledon, on 20 July 1806, was the second son of James Perry [q. v.], proprietor and editor of the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ by his wife Anne, daughter of John Hull of Wilson Street, Finsbury Square, London. He was baptised in Wimbledon church on 11 Oct. 1806, Lord Chancellor Erskine and Dr. Matthew Raine of the Charterhouse being two of his sponsors (Bartlett, History and Antiquities of Wimbledon, 1865, pp. 115–16), and was educated
