22 
HISTORY OF THE 
[1820-30 
It thus appears that Dr. Pearson kept the plan in his head, where 
it lived through his transformation from a thriving London school 
master into a country rector and magistrate, that he got together 
a number of astronomers to join him, and lubricated the business, 
to use Sam Johnson’s phrase, by a dinner. I may be permitted 
so much reference to our age and country as will appear in a slight 
alteration of Molière’s text :— 
“ Le véritable fondateur 
Est le fondateur où l’on dine. 
“ Francis Baily (1819) gave in print a recommendation that such 
a Society should be formed. Sir J. Herschel, when he wrote his 
life of Baily, was not aware that Dr. Pearson had been agitating 
the plan for seven years. Dr. Pearson, who finally left London in 
1821, could not have been, what Baily was from the very first, 
the guide and stay of the Society, an institution which many might 
have founded, but few could have nursed. If the word be plural 
both were founders ; but so far as it can be used in the singular 
it applies only to Dr. Pearson. 
“ It must be remembered that in 1820, Dr. Pearson stood in 
a position which the Society gradually altered by raising others to 
his level. He had that knowledge, which his work of 1824 so amply 
shows, coupled with great industry and zeal, and a remarkable 
collection of instruments. His standing in society was good, and 
his character high. To us Baily is what he made himself in making 
the Society : but in 1820, though Baily was well above the horizon, 
Pearson was on the meridian. 
“ It is to be remembered that we are not to assume that we know 
of all Dr. Pearson’s exertions in this matter. Action in 1812 
and action in 1819, proved by record, may lead to more than sur 
mise of something like continuous effort through all the intervening 
period. My floating recollections of what people said in 1830 tend 
to strengthen the conclusion that Dr. Pearson never lost sight of 
his favourite project.” 
Dr. Pearson died in 1847 an d the Council Report (M.N., 8, 69) 
contains a notice of his life over which much pains was clearly 
taken, but which ends apologetically for its meagreness. He was 
born in 1767 at Whitbeck, Cumberland, and resided for some time 
at Lincoln, where he constructed a portable clock which showed 
the age of the moon. De Morgan wrote to John Herschel in 1867 : 
“ I have just found out that Dr. Pearson began life as a junior 
partner in Sketchley & Pearson, who kept a school at Fulham for 
boys from four to ten. Here he had been for some years in 1800. 
I picked up a sensibly written prospectus—they said plan then—