Person
Lenehan, Henry Alfred (1843 - 1908)
FRAS
- Born
- 28 August 1843
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Died
- 2 May 1908
Normanhurst, New South Wales, Australia - Occupation
- Astronomer
Summary
Henry Lenehan initially worked as a clerk with Australian Joint Stock Bank where he was posted to Ipswich and Rockhampton in Queensland. He then went on to work as a draftsman in the Railway Department (Queensland?). His appointment as an assistant to the Government Astronomer of New South Wales followed shortly afterwards (1870). Lenehan remained in this post for over thirty years, filling in for the Government Astronomer on several occasions. Finally, on 1 January 1907, he was appointed Government Astronomer and quickly set about organising for thousands of observations and readings to be made. These included gravity readings taken by the Sydney Observatory, magnetic studies by the Red Hill Observatory and the observation of the total solar eclipse and Daniel's comet in 1908 at Flint Island. Henry Lenehan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society of London and was a long-term councilor and one-time president of the Royal Society of New South Wales.
Details
Chronology
- 1865 - c. 1870
- Career position - Clerk, Australian Joint Stock Bank in New South Wales and Queensland
- 1870 - 1906
- Career position - Assistant to the Government Astronomer
- 1875
- Career position - Acting Government Astronomer
- 1887
- Career position - Acting Government Astronomer
- 1888 -
- Career event - Original [founding] member, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science
- 1894
- Award - Fellow, Royal Astronomical Society, London (FRAS)
- 1901
- Career position - Acting Government Astronomer
- 1903 - 1906
- Career position - Acting Government Astronomer
- 1905 - 1906
- Career position - President, Royal Society of New South Wales
- 1 Jan 1907 -
- Career position - Government Astronomer
Related entries
Published resources
Book Sections
- Wood, Harley, 'Lenehan, Henry Alfred (1843-1908), Astronomer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 10: 1891 - 1939 Lat-Ner, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986), pp. 73-74. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A100069b.htm. Details
Journal Articles
- Tyler, Peter J., 'Seeing Stars in the City: a History of Early Astronomy in Sydney', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 142 (3/4) (2009), 1-14. Details
- Wood, H., 'Sydney Observatory 1858-1983', Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 5 (2) (1983), 273-281. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1323358000017094. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q24002218. Details
- 'Lenehan, Henry Alfred (1843-1908)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1467692. Details
Gavan McCarthy
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 1 October 2024
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education