Charles Gifford
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Algernon Charles Gifford M.A. (Cantab.) (18 April 1861 - 27 February 1948) was an astronomer, explorer and schoolmaster.
Gifford was born off the Cape of Good Hope aboard the Zealandia and upon arrival in New Zealand his family settled in Oamaru. In 1880 he became a sizar at St John's College, Cambridge and graduated as 14th wrangler. After Cambridge he return to New Zealand to teach mathematics and science at Waitaki Boys' High School (1883-1889) and Christ's College (1889-1892).
From 1895 to 1927 Gifford was a master at Wellington College where he was popular with the students and was often known as "Charlie Gifford" and "Uncle Charlie". In 1913 he established the Wellington College's observatory, named the Gifford Observatory in his honour. Many of Gifford's students at Wellington became accomplished in astronomy with his most famous student being Sir William Pickering, later to become the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory throughout the pioneering years of Solar System exploration.
In 1901 Gifford married Suzie Jones at Oamaru and later had three children.
Near the end of his mastership at Wellington College Gifford started to contribute regular astronomy articles to the Evening Post, one of Wellington's daily newspapers, which later turned into an influential column. His columns were later reprinted as booklets in 14 volumes under the name In Starry Skies, and eventually combined to form an introductory textbook.
He was an apt mathematician, and publications of his mathematically justified theories in 1924 and 1930 contributed to the later-confirmed knowledge that craters on the Moon are the result of meteorite impact. Prior to this time, it had been popularly believed that craters on the Moon were caused by volcanic activity.
Although best known for his enthusiastic promotion of astronomy in New Zealand, including the establishment of an observatory in his name, he was also a respected explorer. Charles Gifford was one of the early photographic documentors of much of the back country within New Zealand's South Island.
External link
- The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/) contains an online biography of Algernon Charles Gifford.