Harold Knox-Shaw, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetHarold Knox-Shaw
British astronomer
Date of Birth: 12-Oct-1885
Date of Death: 11-Apr-1970
Profession: astronomer
Nationality: South Africa
Zodiac Sign: Libra 
About Harold Knox-Shaw
- Harold Knox-Shaw (12 October 1885 â 11 April 1970) was an English astronomer. He was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex as the oldest of four siblings.
- During his youth he earned scholarships to Wellington College in Berkshire and to Trinity, Cambridge, from which he graduated in 1907 ranked as Sixth Wrangler.
- A year following his graduation he became an assistant at the Khedivial Astronomical Observatory in Helwan, Egypt.
- He was elected Fellow of the Society in 1908.
- In 1910 he became the first to photograph Halley's comet from this site. In 1913 he became superintendent of the Khedivial Observatory, and remained at that post until 1924.
- From 1918 until 1924 he also served as the Director of Meteorological Services in Egypt and Sudan.
- He performed welfare work for the British army during World War I, and was awarded the Order of the Nile, Class 4.
- (In 1926 he was awarded Order of the Nile, class 3.) He returned to England in 1924 to become Radcliffe Observer at the Radcliffe Observatory.
- Much of his labor during the following years was then spent in production of the Radcliffe Catalogue of Proper Motions, published in 1934.
- From 1926â30 he was Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, then served as President 1931â32. His dissatisfaction with the observing conditions in England led him to lobby funds for a site in South Africa.
- This observatory would not be completed until 1939, however, when Knox-Shaw took up residence.
- The pouring of the blank for the main telescope was then held up until after World War II.
- From 1941â42 he was president of the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa (ASSA).
- The mirror finally arrived in 1948, followed by a Cassegrain spectrograph in 1951.
- Two years later Knox-Shaw retired. He married Maisie (nÊe Weir of Pretoria) and the couple had one son, Peter, who was born in 1944.
- His twenty-year retirement was spent at Elgin, Western Cape.
- He died from a stroke, and his ashes were scattered on Radcliffe Observatory grounds.
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