User:Adamledwidge/sandbox

Career

William Henry Stanley Monck started his career as a professor of moral philosophy in trinity where he wrote “An Introduction to Kant’s Philosophy” and “Introduction to Logic”.

Monck was the author of numerous works on logics and metaphysics including “Space and Vision”. In 1875 Monck was called to the bar, and then became Chief Registrar in the Bankruptcy Division of the High Court of Ireland, he held this post for many years.

In the year 1892. Monck and his neighbour S.M. Dixon created the first electrical measurements of starlight using phot-voltaic cells which were made by G.M. Minchin. One of Moncks greatest thoughts in his career as an astronomer was the idea that there were two distinct classes of yellow stars, one dull and near and the other bright and remote, this idea was later taken up by J. Gore of Sligo. “Monck published widely in the current journals and has been judged to have been 'a brilliant amateur astronomer'. In 1899 he published an Introduction to Stellar Astronomy which was based on updated versions of his previous articles in the periodical Popular Astronomy.”

Monck was well known for his original writing on astronomical subjects with his contributions being always marked by sound reasoning, good sense, and moderation. Many of his letters were contributed to “The Observatory magazine”. This letter mainly dealt with the maintenance of the suns heat, historical eclipses, and chronology generally. Often, he also wrote for “The English Mechanic” and other papers and in 1890 took an active role in the foundation of he British Astronomical Association. Monck was also a member of the first Council elected by that association, and subsequently contributed many interesting and key papers to its Journal. He drew a lot of attention to the relation existing between the proper motions of stars and their spectral types and later dealt with it again in “Astronomy and Astrophysics, vols xi. And xii.”. He returned once more to the subject and from discussion of the Dunsink catalogue of 717 stars made a demonstration that the earlier types of stars are endowed with a smaller proper motion than later.

He was survived for a few months by his wife. The WHS Monck Observatory at Trinity College, Dublin is named after him.

Mr. W.H.S. Monck, F.R.A.S., was elected a corresponding member of the Astronomical and Physical Society of Toronto on 1898-10-04.