John Flamsteed

John Flamsteed, astronomer, was born on August 19, 1646 in Denby[?], Derbyshire, England. He was ordained deacon and was preparing to take up a living in Derbyshire, when he was invited to London. On March 4, 1675, he was appointed by royal warrant "The King's Astronomical Observator" - the first British Astronomer Royal, with an allowance of £100 a year. In June 1675, another royal warrant provided for the founding of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and Flamsteed laid the foundation stone in August. In February 1676, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in July, he moved into the Observatory where he lived until 1684, when he was finally appointed priest to the parish of Burstow[?], Surrey. He held that office, as well as that of Astronomer Royal, until his death on January 12, 1719. In 1720 he is buried at Burstow[?], Surrey.

In 1666 and 1668, Flamsteed calculated accurately the solar eclipses. He is responsible for the earliest recorded sighting of the planet Uranus, which he mistook for a star and catalogued as 34 Tauri.