Harold Spencer Jones, 1890-1960

Abstract

Harold Spencer Jones was the third child, and eldest son, of Henry Charles Jones, an accountant, and Sarah Ryland, who had been a schoolmistress. He was born in Kensington on 29 March 1890 and exhibited as a child a remarkable interest in mathematics. He was encouraged in his mathematical interests by his parents, and went to Latymer Upper School, from which he won a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge. He took a First Class in Part I of the Mathematical Tripos in 1909, and was a Wrangler in Part II of the Tripos in 1911. He then read Part II of the Natural Sciences Tripos, in Physics, and again secured a First. He was second Smith’s Prizeman in 1913 and Isaac Newton Student in 1912. In 1913 he was elected to a Fellowship in Jesus College. In 1913 he was appointed Chief Assistant at the Royal Observatory, which was then at Greenwich, where he remained for ten years, with some interruption occasioned by the 1914-1918 war. During Spencer Jones’s first period at Greenwich he went to Russia with C. R. Davidson to observe the eclipse of 1914. He wrote several papers on a subject which remained one of great interest to him, namely the variation of latitude, as observed by the Cookson floating telescope. He also made a determination of the photographic magnitude scale of the North Polar Sequence. In the midst of these activities, he was appointed to the office of H.M. Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope, taking up office in 1923. He was, of course, a young man to be appointed to such a position, in which he was director of a large observatory.