Brooks, William Robert

(b. Maidstone, England, 11 June 1844; d. Geneva, New York, 3 May 1921)

astronomy.

Brooks was an enthusiastic and successful observer, whose efforts led to the discovery of twenty-seven comets. His family emigrated to Darien, New York, in 1857, and he spent the remainder of his life in western New York state. While still a child, Brooks developed an interest in observational astronomy and a talent for mechanical construction. In 1858 he built his first telescope, and with it observed Donati’s comet. In his father’s church, three years later, Brooks delivered the first of his many popular astronomical lectures.

In 1870 Brooks, now married to Mary E. Smith, settled in Phelps, New York, where he worked briefly as a commercial photographer. He increasingly devoted attention to construction and use of telescopes, making a two-inch refractor and reflectors of five and nine inches aperture. His garden, with this portable apparatus, became the Red House Observatory. Here, on 4 October 1881, Brooks discovered his first comet (comet 1881 F, Brooks-Denning), and during the subsequent seven years he found ten more. In 1888 he moved to Geneva, New York, to take charge of the newly established Smith Observatory. Even though this observatory, according to the wishes of its founder, was open for the entertainment and instruction of visitors every clear weekday evening, Brooks was able to discover sixteen more comets—most of them in the morning sky. In addition to his work at the observatory, Brooks was professor of astronomy at Hobart College from 1900, and at William Smith College from 1908 as well.

Brooks belonged to the Royal Astronomical Society, the Liverpool Astronomical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the British Astronomical Association. For his cometary discoveries he was widely acclaimed by his contemporaries. He many times won the Warner Prize, and later the Donohoe Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, for discoveries of unexpected comets. He also won the Prix Lalande of the Académie des Sciences (1900); a gold medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis (1904); and a gold medal from the Astronomical Society of Mexico.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Brooks’s announcements of his discoveries and observations were published in astronomical journals (e.g., Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society), general scientific journals (e.g., Scientific American), and in local New York newspapers.

II. Secondary Literature. See Brooks’s obituary in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 82 (1922), 246–247. Articles on him are in The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, V (1894), 197–198; and in Dictionary of American Biography, III (1929), 91–92.

Deborah Jean Warner