The Forgotten Story of Edward Crossley & Joseph Gledhill

Swept under the Carpet the Forgotten story of Edward Crossley and Joseph Gledhill

The West Yorkshire town of Halifax was dominated by textile mills in the 19th century. Crossley Carpets made carpets which were exported around the world. What is less well known is that Edward Crossley and his employed assistant astronomer Joseph Gledhill had an observatory with the largest reflecting telescope in England. The two astronomers made massive contributions to the study of astronomy and after their deaths, Crossley's two big telescopes, the 36 inch Common reflector and the 9.3 inch Cooke refractor, continued to be used in astronomical research.

Martin Frederick Edward Lunn MBE FRAS is a prominent British public astronomer, curator, and lecturer based in Earby, Lancashire. He uniquely earned his astrophysics degree from the Open University while working as a guard on British Rail during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Lunn famously served as the Curator of Astronomy at the Yorkshire Museum from 1989 until his early retirement in 2011, a tenure during which he became a leading authority on historic York figures like 19th-century telescope maker Thomas Cooke and deaf 18th-century astronomer John Goodricke. Appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1998 for his services to astronomy and education, he is also a Fellow and former council member of the Royal Astronomical Society

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