- Edward Crossley
Edward Crossley (1841 or 1842 –
January 21 1905 ) was an English businessman, Liberal Party politician andastronomer .Biography
Edward Crossley was the eldest son of Joseph Crossley J.P., of Broomfield,
Halifax, Yorkshire , of the Crossley carpets dynasty. He inherited his family's carpet manufacturing business (John Crossley & Sons) from his father when he was 27. He married Jane Eleanor Baines, third daughter of the Leeds newspaper proprietor and MPSir Edward Baines .He was the
Member of Parliament (MP) for Sowerby from 1885 to 1892. He was also mayor of Halifax from 1874–1876 and 1884–1885.He became a Fellow of the
Royal Astronomical Society in 1867. He built an astronomicalobservatory and purchased a convert|36|in|mm|sing=on telescope fromAndrew Ainslie Common in 1885, and employedJoseph Gledhill as an observer. With Gledhill andJames Maurice Wilson (later Canon of Worcester), he wrote "Handbook of Double Stars" in 1879, which became a standard reference work.The rainy English weather and the industrial air pollution at his observatory site were rather unsuitable for astronomy, so in 1895 he donated his convert|36|in|mm|sing=on telescope to
Lick Observatory inCalifornia . Though extensively modified, it is still in use and is known as theCrossley reflector . This telescope was used byCharles Dillon Perrine to discover two moons of Jupiter.External links
* [http://www.halifax-today.co.uk/specialfeatures/triviatrail/c.html#c272 Short biography]
Obituaries
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0065//0000335.000.html MNRAS 65 (1905) 335]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0028//0000110.000.html Obs 28 (1905) 110]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0017//0000078.000.html PASP 17 (1905) 78]
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