Item 83 - Letter from Richard Sheepshanks

4 pp.

RS has been agreeably enlightened by WW's account of his future plans [see RS to WW, 1 Aug. 1827]: 'To say the truth, I had formed an erroneous and rather rash opinion that you had made up your mind what you should like to do but were doubtful of its prudence. I never for an instant asked you to study divinity to get on as the phrase is but as a proper means of obtaining a desired end'. Contrary from 'thinking your castle building either idle or vain, it is merely a more detailed plan of what has often appeared to me desirable and feasible in a misty generality...let me tell you how I hope to be aiding and abetting in this great design of improving mankind in general and our university in particular'. His plans will be totally contingent on his eyes getting better, the fate of Robert Woodhouse [Plumian Professor of Astronomy] and the attitude of the heads: 'I intend getting leave from the heads to look after the observatory, i.e. keep the clocks going, the rooms aired, the instruments in repair etc. Now as I want no salary and have neither the impudence to aspire to nor in fact even a longing for the professorship which I would not take if offered to me; I hope (unless objections now not visible should present themselves) to carry this point'. RS has for some time wanted to do something in astronomy either by the Astronomical Society or by the government. Namely to compute from the Nautical Almanac the sidereal time of the culmination of the moon's enlightened limb at Greenwich, and 'make the computation of the longitude from moon's transits a very short and easy operation'. RS and his horse fell yesterday. Can RS borrow some money to help his 'poor riding master'.