Edmund Neison FRS[1] FRAS[2] (27 August 1849 – 14 January 1940[2]), whose real name was Edmund Neville Nevill, wrote a key text in selenography called The Moon and the Condition and Configuration of its Surface in 1876 and later set up the Natal Observatory in Durban, Natal Province.
[3] He was born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England on 27 August 1849 and educated at Harrow School and New College, Oxford.
In 1871, Nevill returned to London and worked as parliamentary reporter to The Standard and also as theatre critic, but his interests included astronomy and chemistry.
Nevill has the means to set up a private observatory in Hampstead and became known as amateur with a special interest in the Moon.
At meeting of Chemical Society on 26 April 1876 committee formed and Neison was one of the Fellows of the Institute of Chemistry, serving on the council from 1877 to 1900.
Simon Newcomb found fluctuations both irregular and long period, and researched early observations of Moon.
In 1878 Newcomb reviewed all observations and found that Hansen's fit back to 1750 worked because all earlier results were ignored.
David Gill, Astronomer Royal to the Cape, agreed and £350 voted by the Corporation of Durban plus £500 by the Legislative Council to found an observatory.
A Grubb 8-inch aperture equatorial refracting telescope presented by Escombe and a 3-inch transit instrument was purchased by the government.
Nevill took possession of the observatory 1 December 1882 and found a thick coat of paint covered dome machinery making it immovable, the telescope had been erected prior to dome and had suffered from salt air and moved with difficulty, the polarising solar eyepiece was incompatible with telescope or accessories.
Paul Huges (UK) has researched the letters from Nevill to Darwin on tide observations as part of a larger body of work on the history of tidal theory in the nineteenth century.
Political changes in the Legislative Assembly occurred throughout this period, and in 1888 an assistant was appointed again, and a manuscript catalogue of the Right Ascensions of zodiacal stars was made.