Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Hearing With the Eye: the Life and Work of John Goodricke
Professor Linda French
Department of Physics
Illinois Wesleyan University

Joint lecture with the Historical Association (York Branch)

John Goodricke (1764-1786) of York is one of the most impressive figures in the history of astronomy. Although deaf from a very young age, he determined the periods of variation of three stars of immense significance to modern astrophysics and cosmology. He was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London at the age of 19 for his work and was elected to membership in that body at the age of 21, only two weeks before he died.
Goodricke’s astronomical journals, and those of his collaborator Edward Pigott, have been the starting point for this investigation. The research has also led into various archives, country manors, and churches across the North of England in a search for information about Goodricke genealogy, family financial records, and burial vaults. The talk will focus on the achievements of Goodricke and Pigott, and on their connections in and around York.
This research was supported by a grant from the American Astronomical Society and the Herbert C. Pollock Award for Research in the History of Astronomy from the Dudley Observatory.

Report
by Ken Hutson
This was a comprehensive look at John Goodricke’s short life during what has been called the ‘Age of Wonder’. Despite being deaf and dumb, he achieved fame for his astronomical research and discovery, much of this with observations from his room at the Treasurer’s House in York, taking sightings using the Minster pinnacles. The Royal Society awarded him the 1783 Copley Medal for discovering that Algol was an eclipsing binary star, and elected him a fellow in 1786, only two weeks before his death, aged 21.
Goodricke kept no diaries. It had been inferred that he was deaf from birth, that his family were ashamed of this and that he was buried in an unmarked grave. In fact, he became deaf aged five, probably from scarlet fever, his family sent him to excellent schools and he lived with them for a time afterwards, and he is buried in the family vault at Hunsingore in North Yorkshire.

Sponsored by Historical Association