1830-40 
1830-40] ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY 63 
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the cost of printing (about £30) was rather more than the Society 
could conveniently afford. Baily, therefore, liberally paid the whole 
cost of computing and printing for the year 1836. Airy then, in 1836 
March, wrote to the Admiralty asking that this Transit Ephemeris 
might be prepared and printed at the public expense. As he bore the 
strongest testimony to the value of this publication in fixed observa 
tories, where it saved a great deal of work, the Admiralty at once 
directed that it should in future form part of the Nautical Almanac. 
3. The appointment of Stratford to superintend the Nautical 
Almanac obliged him to give up the Secretaryship of the Society, 
which he had held since 1826. It deserves to be remembered 
(and is recorded in the obituary notice of him in 1854) that during 
the five years he was Secretary he had no assistance whatever, 
so that “ the whole routine of the business was conducted by him, 
from the correction of the proofs of the Memoirs to the folding of 
circulars.” It was in view of his approaching retirement that the 
Council in 1830 November appointed Mr. James Epps to be 
Assistant Secretary from December 10, at a salary of £100 a 
year, and ordered him to attend the meetings of the Council. 
He was at that time fifty-seven years of age, and though he had 
not received a regular education, he is said to have acquired a 
good deal of knowledge of astronomy. He had published a couple 
of short papers in the Memoirs (vol. 4 ) on finding the errors of 
a transit instrument; and three others were afterwards printed 
in vols. 6, 9 , and 11 on similar subjects. He was also interested 
in rare, old books,* and was thus in every way well qualified for the 
post he was to fill. He held the office of Assistant Secretary till 
1838 March, when he resigned and removed to Hartwell Observa 
tory, where Dr. Lee had appointed him observer ; but he died in 
the following year. He was succeeded in the service of the Society 
by Mr. John Hartnup, formerly assistant at Lord Wrottesley’s 
Observatory, and employed for some time at Greenwich. He was 
engaged at a salary of £80, and held the post till 1843 November, 
when he became Director of the new Liverpool Observatory. 
The growth of the library and many other considerations 
made it more and more urgent for the Society to find a permanent 
home in a suitable locality. They paid fifty guineas a year to the 
Medico-Chirurgieal Society for the use of rooms in that Society’s 
house, 57 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. In 1830 February a Committee 
was appointed by the Council “ to procure apartments.” But they 
were not easy to find ; and it was therefore fortunate that an 
influential person came to the rescue. The Duke of Sussex (brother 
Among books formerly belonging to Hartwell Observatory there are 
several rare ones in which Lee has written, “ From Mr. Epps’s collection.”