25 
1820-30] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 
Report above) preparatory to Eton, where “ he found about 200 
youths of noble families and connections, lodged in a magnificent 
villa, that had once been the retreat of a Minister, superintended 
by a sycophantic doctor of divinity, already well beneficed and not 
despairing of a bishopric by favouring the children of the great 
nobles.” As Disraeli was born in 1804, his schooldays would have 
been about Dr. Pearson’s time ; but his biographies mention 
Blackheath and Walthamstow as his early schools. So that we 
feel sure that the above rather unpleasant portrait has nothing 
to do with our Founder, in spite of the following local allusion :— 
“ Mr. Rigby was so clever that he contrived always to quarter 
Coningsby on the father of one of his school-fellows, for Mr. Rigby 
knew all his school-fellows and all their fathers. Mr. Rigby also 
called to see him, not unfrequently would give him a dinner at the 
Star and Garter, or even have him up to town for a week to 
Whitehall.” 
If the Star and Garter is to be taken literally it certainly points 
to East Sheen : but it may surely be a substitution for some other 
famous dining place such as The Ship at Greenwich. Disraeli was 
at school at Blackheath, and by an odd coincidence there was a 
school there also associated with the name of Spencer Perceval— 
afterwards divided into two houses, Spencer House and Perceval 
House. 
In later years there was at Temple Grove a pupil whose name 
(disguised) is even better known than that of Disraeli. In Tracks 
of a Rolling Stone (1905) Mr. William Coke describes Temple Grove 
as he knew it in 1837. He gave his name to the Billy Coke or 
billycock hat, otherwise known from its maker, Mr. Bowler. Lord 
Selborne and Lord Grey were also at the school, the former as a 
contemporary of Admiral Purey-Cust. Another of our Fellows, 
Colonel A. C. Bigg-Wither, was there in 1853-55. 
Certainly the works of Dr. Pearson, as we know them, do not 
savour of a “ sycophantic doctor of divinity.” His generosity 
seems to have been as great as his assiduity in labours, which many 
men would find distasteful. It is no light matter to produce a 
volume of astronomical tables. It is curious how this side of 
astronomy seems to have fascinated our pioneers : probably it 
was the link between Pearson and Baily. 
We find ample evidence in the history of the early years of the 
new Society that its prime motive was “ precise measurement 
and systematic calculation.” It might have been supposed that 
the more picturesque work of its first actual President, Sir William 
Herschel, would inspire the active members to follow him, at 
however respectful a distance, in examining nebulae, stellar clusters,