The Rector of South Kilworth – a talk by Mike Frost

From 1817 to 1847 the Rector of South Kilworth, South Leicestershire, was the Reverend William Pearson. He was also the co-founder of the Royal Astronomical Society, and his portrait hangs in the council room of the RAS. From his observatories in the village, Pearson carried out decades of observational astronomy, which were published in “Practical Astronomy”, the leading astronomical textbook of the early nineteenth century.

This talk tells the story of a neglected but significant figure in Victorian astronomy.