L30/18/14/3

Copy of letter from George Biddell Airy (1801-1892), see Dictionary of National Biography (DNB), to Right Honourable T. Spring Rice, sent from Keswick:

30 Aug 1834

From: 1834 To: 1834

Received letter of 25 August announcing probable vacancy in position of Astronomer Royal. Would he accept it?: 1. In the first place I beg to answer generally that, abstractedly from the consideration of my present office and the attention which I am compelled to pay to the subject of emoluments, I should be exceedingly proud to hold the office of Astronomer Royal. 2. In my present circumstances with inducements to remain at Cambridge, (inducements depending both on residence and my official situation) such as I could hardly explain, I should not be disposed to leave Cambridge except that I felt it my duty to attend to pecuniary arrangements, my acceptance must therefore depend primarily on the Salary of the office and may I mention £800 per annum as the smallest salary which appears to me a sufficient inducement. 3. I should like to know whether after any number of years service a retiring Pension or a Widower's pension is allowed. 4. I should wish to be informed whether suggestions of the Astronomer Royal with regard to the situations of the Assistants at the Royal Observatory would probably be complied with. The removal of the present first Assistant, and the power of recommending one Assistant to a rank somewhat superior to the others appears to be almost essential to the efficiency of the establishment. 5. I am not at present well informed on the extent of the duties, and should be glad to learn whether the responsible care of rating the Chronometers sent to compete for the prizes is one. 6. I wish to be informed whether suggestions as to the Buildings of the Observatory would be well received. In this and in No.4 I mean of course with the limitation that the expense be small, or as small as possible. 7. I have now to allude to another point, which I cannot mention without great pain, but which nevertheless must be distinctly mentioned: and I trust that if you consider for a moment that my all depends on it, and that in the event of accepting this Office I must do it by giving up another which has for me very great attractions, you will think me blameable in stating it at once. The degree of insecurity attaching to offices of this nature in the disposal of the Government has lately been such that without a very distinct understanding on this point it is impossible for us to proceed in any negotiation. To justify myself in this remark I shall only observe that I was a member of the Board of Longitude when it was dissolved without a moment's notice, at a time when I am sure that some of its members, and I believe most of them, were exerting themselves much in its duties and that I have seen the present Astronomer Royal deprived of part of his salary (attached to the care of the Nautical Almanac) in a manner equally sudden. In this remark I am very far from objecting to diminution of salary such as the exingencies of the country might require in this as in other offices. I therefore mention as a Sine qua non condition, an understanding on the honor of the principals that this Office have the same security as other appointments under His Majesty's Government, with understood permission in case of necessity under a change of administration to call upon the Principals to state that this condition was made.

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Airy, George Biddell,
Rice, Thomas Spring, 1st Baron Monteagle of Brandon

Astronomer Royal, Greenwich Royal Observatory