Beverley, Thomas (1795-1834), born Wilton near Pickering in the East Riding of Yorkshire, he received rudimentary education. Apprenticed as a whaler, he later received mathematical tuition from the master of Thornton Grammar School. He eventually left the sea becoming a teacher of navigation at Brompton Village near to Scarborough. Devoted to improving mathematical tables for calculating longitude at sea, his research was published posthumously in 1836 (Beverley 1836, vii-viii).
Clark, James Edmund (1850-1944), born, Street, Somerset he studied in Heidelberg and at University College, London before becoming a science teacher at the Bootham School in York (see Surrey; Obit., Nat, 155 [Jan. 6, 1945], 14).
Cooke, Thomas [Cook](1807-1868), born in Allerthorpe, East Riding, optical instrument maker and manufacturer of astronomical telescopes, based in York – later Thomas Cooke and Sons (see Yorkshire: East Riding; ODNB; McConnell 1992; Obit., MNRAS, 29 (1868), 130-5).
Fielder, Gilbert (1933- ), born in Middlesbrough in 1933. BAA Lunar section director 1958-62. A professional geologist, he experienced difficulty in moving the Section to a more scientific and useful approach in the era of spacecraft photography. He was based at the Mill Hill Observatory from 1966-71, then at the University of Lancaster (Leatherbarrow 2013, 149).
Goodricke, John (1764-1786), born in Holland but lived mostly in York, father of Variable Star Astronomy (ODNB).
Hedley, Hebert (1859-1939), born in Masham, Yorkshire. Observed using a 4-inch telescope, and also undertook microscopic work as he was also interested in biology and botany. Elected fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1926 and travelled around Kent lecturing on astronomy in his later years (see ‘Obit…’, MNRAS, 100 (1940), p. 249).
Parsons, William [third Earl of Rosse] (1800-67), born in York, educated Trinity College Dublin, and Magdalen College Oxford ( ODNB; see Offaly (Kings)).
Pigott, Nathaniel (1725-1804), born Whitton, Middlesex. After setting-up an observatory on his estate at Frampton House, Glamorganshire 1777, Pigott removed to Bootham, York. Here he re-established his observatory (1781-85 and 1792-93). He is noted for his observations of eclipses, the transit of Venus of 1769 from Caen in France, from Louvain in Belgium the transit of Mercury of 1786, and comets (ODNB; McConnell & Brecht 1999; Griffiths 2011; Middlesex).
Wigglesworth, James [FRAS] (1815-1888), born Wisby nr. Bradford, a wealthy soap manufacturer who purchased large share of Thomas Cooke’s business, from his sons, after the death of Cooke senior. His sole leisure activity being astronomy, purchasing Cooke’s first 6-inch refractor in 1853. Later he commissioned a 15 1/2-inch Cooke refractor with dome that was erected at his home in Scarborough (Obit., MNRAS, 47 (1889), 162; Emery & Hawkridge 2007).
Survey of Astronomical History 