The Savilian professors' houses, 1672-1854, and Halley's observatory

Commentary
The Savilian professors' houses, 1672-1854, and Halley's observatory

Image 1-2. The house of Savilian professors of astronomy, 7 New College Lane, Oxford (left), and Commemorative plaque for Edmund Halley (right). Photos by Kastrel, 10 March 2014, Source: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Images 2-3. The Savilian Professors’ House and Halley’s Observatory, now 7 and 8 New College Lane. Photo by Thomas-Photos, Ltd., taken before the tree obstructed this view. Source: Bell and Hartley (1961), facing page 179 (further detail below)

Commentary

'John Wallis (Savilian Professor of Geometry, 1649–1703) rented a house from New College on New College Lane from 1672 until his death in 1703; at some point, it was divided into two houses. Towards the end of his life, David Gregory (the Savilian Professor of Astronomy) lived in the eastern part of the premises [on the left] …. Wallis's son gave the unexpired portion of the lease to the university in 1704 in honour of his father's long tenure of the chair, to provide official residences for the two Savilian professors. New College renewed the lease at a low rent from 1716 and thereafter at intervals until the last renewal in 1814…. The geometry professors were associated with the houses for longer than the astronomy professors: when the Radcliffe Observatory was built in the 1770s, the post of Radcliffe Observer was coupled to the astronomy professorship, and they were provided with a house in that role; thereafter, the university sublet the astronomy professor's house itself. In the early 19th century, New College decided that it wished to use the properties for itself and the lease expired in 1854.'

Source: H. E. Bell  and Harold Brewer Hartley, ‘The Savilian professors’ houses and Halley’s observatory at Oxford’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 16.2 (1961), pp. 179-86, as summarized in Wikipedia.