Astronomer Royal

Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Households of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834.

The post was created by King Charles II in 1675, at the same time as he founded the Royal Observatory Greenwich. He appointed John Flamsteed, instructing him "forthwith to apply himself with the most exact care and diligence to the rectifying the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars, so as to find out the so-much desired longitude of places, for the perfecting the art of navigation."

The Astronomer Royal was director of the Royal Observatory Greenwich from the establishment of the post in 1675 until 1972. The Astronomer Royal become an honorary title in 1972 without executive responsibilities and a separate post of Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory was created to manage the institution.

The Astronomer Royal today receives a stipend of 100 GBP per year and is a member of the Royal Household, under the general authority of the Lord Chamberlain. After the separation of the two offices, the position of Astronomer Royal has been largely honorary, though he remains available to advise the Sovereign on astronomical and related scientific matters, and the office is of great prestige.

Martin Rees

Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS, FREng, FMedSci (born 23 June 1942) is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He has been Astronomer Royal since 1995 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.

Early life

Rees was born on 23 June 1942 in York, England. He was educated at Bedstone College, then from the age of 13 at Shrewsbury School, Shropshire. He studied for the Mathematics tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating with first class. He then undertook post-graduate research at Cambridge and completed a PhD degree under Dennis Sciama in 1967.

Scientific career

After holding post-doctoral research positions in the United Kingdom and the United States, he taught at Sussex University and the University of Cambridge, where he was the Plumian Professor until 1991, and the director of the Institute of Astronomy.

From 1992 to 2003, he was Royal Society Research Professor, and from 2003 Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics. He was Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, London, in 1975 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. He holds Visiting Professorships at Imperial College London and at the University of Leicester and is an Honorary Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge.

Michael Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn

Michael John Martin, Baron Martin of Springburn, PC (born 3 July 1945) is a British politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow Springburn from 1979 to 2005, and then for Glasgow North East until 2009. He was a Labour Party MP until his election as the Speaker of the House of Commons in 2000, and was Speaker for nine years until his resignation in 2009.

On his election to the post of Speaker in 2000 he was the first Roman Catholic to serve in the role since the Reformation. He resigned from the position on 21 June 2009 as a result of diminishing parliamentary and public confidence owing to his role in the expenses scandal. He also stood down from the House of Commons on the following day.

Early life

Martin was born in Glasgow in 1945, the son of a merchant seaman and a school cleaner. He attended St Patrick's Boys' School in Anderston, leaving at the age of 15 to become an apprentice sheet-metal worker. He became involved in the National Union of Sheet Metal Workers and Coppersmiths and joined the Labour Party when he was 21. He later worked in the Rolls-Royce plant at Hillington, and was an Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union shop steward from 1970 to 1974.

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