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John Goldingham was the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, appointed in 1802. Goldingham headed the Madras Survey School later which grew into the Guindy Engineering College and then Anna University. Born in London in 1767, Goldingham was hired by astronomer-sailor Michael Topping as his assistant in 1788. John Goldingham succeeded Michael Topping as the Astronomer posted in Madras. Goldingham was put in charge of building an observatory in 1792, and later appointed as the Presidency Civil Engineer in 1800. Although a mathematician, he managed to learn both astronomy and engineering. He worked at around the same time as Colonel Lambton began the Trigonometrical Survey. From 1787 observations were made on the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites. Using the time taken for these, the longitudes were established. Goldingham estimated the Madras observatory at 18 17 21 E and these were used by the Trigonometrical Survey. Goldingham was succeeded by T. G. Taylor in 1831. In 1796, he married Maria Louisa Popham, niece of Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham, in St. Mary's in Fort St. George. In 1802, Goldingham formulated the Madras time which was 5 hours and 21 minutes ahead of GMT thus establishing the closest precedent to Indian Standard Time adopted a century later in 1906. In 1800, he designed the Banqueting Hall (now Rajaji Hall), for which he was granted a commission of 15% on all bills. After the Board of Directors found that Goldingham had drawn 22,500 pagodas¹ as commission on the 180,000 spent on the work till September 1801, the commission was suspended. He then returned to his work as Government Astronomer, in the course of which he published two volumes of observations: one of them contains his observations on the length of the pendulum, the velocity of sound, of meteorological phenomena, as well as determinations of the longitude of Madras, and a discussion of the longitudes of the three Presidencies. He retired back to England, where he died at Worcester, in July 1849. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Astronomical Society. ==References== * () for information on the pagoda * Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol 10, 1849–50 * (Snared in the Net ), ''The Hindu'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Goldingham」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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