Editing Richard A. Proctor (section)

==Biography==

[[File:Richard_Proctor_Vanity_Fair_3_March_1883.jpg|thumb|left|{{center|"Astronomy"<br>Richard Proctor as caricatured by [[Leslie Ward|Spy]] in [[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]], 3 March 1883}}]]
Richard Proctor's father died in 1850 and his mother attended to his education.  He was sent to [[King's College London]] and subsequently earned a scholarship at [[St John's College, Cambridge|St John's College]], [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]]. He graduated in 1860 as 23rd wrangler.<ref>{{acad|id=PRCR856RA|name=Proctor, Richard Anthony}}</ref>

Proctor then read for the bar, but turned to [[astronomy]] and authorship instead, and in 1865 published an article on the ''Colours of Double Stars'' in the ''[[Cornhill Magazine]]''. His first book ''[[Saturn]] and its System'' was published in the same year, at his own expense. This work contains an elaborate account of the phenomena presented by the planet; but although favourably received by astronomers, it had no great sale. He intended to follow it up with similar treatises on [[Mars]], [[Jupiter]], [[Sun]], [[Moon]], [[comet]]s and [[meteor]]s, [[star]]s, and [[nebula]]e, and had in fact commenced a monograph on Mars, when the failure of a [[New Zealand]] bank deprived him of an independence which would have enabled him to carry out his scheme without anxiety as to its commercial success or failure.

Being thus obliged to depend upon his writings for the support of his family, and having learned by the fate of his ''Saturn and its System'' that the general public are not attracted by works requiring arduous study, he cultivated a more popular style. He wrote for a number of periodicals; and although he has stated that he would at this time willingly have turned to stone-breaking on the roads, or any other form of hard and honest but unscientific labour, if a modest competence had been offered him in any such direction, he attained a high degree of popularity, and his numerous works had a wide influence in familiarising the public with the main facts of astronomy.

Proctor's earlier efforts were not always successful. His ''Handbook of the Stars'' (1866) was refused by Messrs Longmans and Messrs Macmillan, but being privately printed, it sold fairly well. For his ''[[Half-Hours with the Telescope]]'' (1868), which eventually reached a 20th edition, he received originally £25 from Messrs Hardwick. Although teaching was uncongenial to him he took pupils in mathematics, and held for a time the position of mathematical coach for Woolwich and Sandhurst. 

Proctor's literary standing meantime improved, and he became a regular contributor to ''[[The Intellectual Observer]]'', ''[[Chamber's Journal]]'' and the ''[[Popular Science Review]]''. In 1870 appeared his ''[[Other Worlds Than Ours (Proctor book)|Other Worlds Than Ours]]'',<ref>Richard A. Proctor: Other worlds than ours : the plurality of worlds studied under the light of recent scientific researches. London : Longmans, Green, 1870. ([http://hdl.handle.net/2027/chi.57121156 Digital Copy])</ref> in which he discussed the question of the plurality of worlds in the light of new facts. This was followed by a long series of popular treatises in rapid succession, amongst the more important of which are ''Light Science for Leisure Hours'' and ''The Sun'' (1871); ''The Orbs around Us'' and ''Essays on Astronomy'' (1872); ''The Expanse of Heaven'', ''The Moon'' and ''The Borderland of Science'' (1873); ''The Universe and the Coming Transits'' and ''Transits of Venus'' (1874); ''Our Place among Infinities'' (1875); [https://archive.org/details/mythsmarvelsofas00procuoft ''Myths and Marvels of Astronomy'' (1877)]; ''The Universe of Stars'' (1878); ''Flowers of the Sky'' (1879); ''The Poetry of Astronomy'' (1880); ''Easy Star Lessons'' and ''Familiar Science Studies'' (1882); [https://archive.org/details/mysteriesoftimes00proc ''Mysteries of Time and Space (1883) - Digital Copy'']; [https://archive.org/details/greatpyramidobse00proc "The Great Pyramid" (1883) - Digital Copy]; ''The Universe of Suns'' (1884); ''The Seasons'' (1885); ''Other Suns than Ours'' and ''Half-Hours with the Stars'' (1887).

In 1881 Proctor founded ''[[Knowledge (magazine)|Knowledge]]'', a popular weekly magazine of science (converted into a monthly in 1885), which had a considerable circulation. In it he wrote on a great variety of subjects, including chess and whist.

Proctor was also the author of the articles on astronomy in the ''[[American Cyclopaedia]]'' and the ninth edition of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', and was well known as a popular lecturer on astronomy in England, [[United States|America]] and Australia.

[[Image:Proctor Mars Map.jpg|right|thumb|Proctor's map of Mars]]

Proctor was elected a fellow of the [[Royal Astronomical Society]] on 8 June 1866.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=1866MNRAS..26..281. Page 281 |url=https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1866MNRAS..26..281. |access-date=2024-07-22 |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|date=1866 |volume=26 |page=281 |bibcode=1866MNRAS..26..281. }}</ref> He became honorary secretary in 1872, and contributed eighty-three separate papers to its [[Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|Monthly Notices]]. Of these the more noteworthy dealt with the distribution of stars, [[star cluster]]s and nebulae, and the construction of the [[sidereal universe]]. He was an expert in all that related to map-drawing, and published two star-atlases. A chart on an [[isographic projection]], exhibiting all the stars contained in the [[Bonner Durchmusterung]], was designed to show the laws according to which the stars down to the 9–10th magnitude are distributed over the northern heavens. His ''Theoretical Considerations'' respecting the [[Stellar corona|Corona]] (Monthly Notices, xxxi. 184, 254) also deserve mention,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=1871MNRAS..31..184P Page 184 |url=https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1871MNRAS..31..184P |access-date=2024-07-22 |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|bibcode=1871MNRAS..31..184P |last1=Proctor |first1=R. A. |date=1871 |volume=31 |page=184 |doi=10.1093/mnras/31.6.184 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |title=1871MNRAS..31..254P Page 254 |url=https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1871MNRAS..31..254P |access-date=2024-07-22 |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|bibcode=1871MNRAS..31..254P |last1=Proctor |first1=R. A. |date=1871 |volume=31 |page=254 |doi=10.1093/mnras/31.9.254 |doi-access=free }}</ref> as well as his discussions of the rotation of Mars, by which be deduced its period with a probable error of 0.005. He also vigorously criticised the official arrangements for observing the [[transit of Venus|transits of Venus]] of 1874 and 1882. He was elected as a member to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1874.<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?year=1874;smode=advanced;startDoc=1|access-date=2021-05-05|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

Proctor's largest and most ambitious work, ''Old and New Astronomy'', left unfinished at his death, was completed by [[Arthur Cowper Ranyard]] and published in 1892<ref>{{cite book|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001475810|title=Old and new astronomy ''by Richard A. Proctor, completed by A. Cowper Ranyard''|year=1892|location=London|publisher=Longmans, Green & Co}}</ref> with a second edition in 1895.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Old and New Astronomy'' by R. A. Proctor, 1895|journal=The Quarterly Journal|date=July 1898|volume=188|pages=113–138|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924074780051;view=1up;seq=125}}</ref> He settled in America some time after his second marriage in 1881, and died of [[yellow fever]] at New York City on 12 September 1888. A monument was later erected in his memory.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Holden, E. S. | title = Monument to the Late Richard Proctor | journal = Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific | date = 1893 | volume = 5 | issue = 32 | pages = 222 | bibcode = 1893PASP....5Q.222. | doi = 10.1086/120721| doi-access = free }}</ref> [[Mary Proctor]], his daughter by his first marriage, became an astronomer and a successful lecturer and writer. Proctor’s second wife, Sallie (1856-1941), was also active in astronomy.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=1942MNRAS.102...73. Page 73 |url=https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1942MNRAS.102...73. |access-date=2024-07-22 |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society|date=1942 |volume=102 |page=73 |doi=10.1093/mnras/102.2.73 |doi-access=free |bibcode=1942MNRAS.102...73. }}</ref>