Wexford

Email: Survey Officer

Astronomers

Ellison, Mervyn Archdall (1909 May 5 – 1963 September 12) was the third son of W. F. A. Ellison born in Fethard-on-Sea near Waterford, CountyWexford, Southern Ireland. Went to the Royal School Armagh and then Trinity College,Dublin where he studied physics. In 1933 was appointed the role of senior science master at the Sherborne School in Dorset. In the period up to the outbreak of the Second World he built his own spectrohelioscope (later own by the late Commander Henry Hatfield of Sevenoaks). Ellison worked for the Admiralty during the war.In 1946 Ellison became a member of the IAU and in the following year joined the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh to continue his studies into solar phenomena. In 1955 wrote the book “The Sun and its Influence”. In the ‘International Geophysical Year’ of 1957-8 he worked in Cape Town, South Africa where he set up a heliograph and reported observations made with it.Ellison died in 1963 and the crater on the Moon named ‘Ellison’ is after him.

Maxwell, Somerset Henry JP, DL [Co Cavan, (1849-?) born in Wexford. Owner of the Grubb ‘Farnham’ 6-inch refractor which left Ireland in 1914 and was erected at Mt Stromlo in Australia.