Lenehan, Henry Alfred (1843 - 1908)

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 (Henry C, Russell) followed shortly afterwards (1870). Lenehan remained in this post for over thirty years, being responsible for recording accurate star positions using the transit instrument. On several occasions he was Acting Government Astronomer. 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 councillor and 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, Sydney Observatory

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 - 1 January 1908

Career position - Government Astronomer, Sydney Observatory

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. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lenehan-henry-alfred-7170. 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