These two discoveries were called "the most brilliant and useful of the century" by Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre, historian of astronomy, mathematical astronomer and director of the Paris Observatory.

His early observations were made at the rectory of Wanstead in Essex, under the tutelage of James Pound, his uncle and a skilled astronomer.

[7] He took orders on becoming vicar of Bridstow in Herefordshire in the following year, and a small sinecure living in Wales was also procured for him by his friend Samuel Molyneux.

He resigned his ecclesiastical preferments in 1721, when appointed to the Savilian chair of astronomy at Oxford, while as reader on experimental philosophy from 1729 to 1760, he delivered 79 courses of lectures at the Ashmolean Museum.

[7] In 1742, Bradley was appointed to succeed Edmond Halley as Astronomer Royal; his reputation enabled him to apply successfully for a set of instruments costing £1,000; and with an 8-foot quadrant completed for him in 1750 by John Bird, he accumulated at Greenwich in ten years materials of inestimable value for the reform of astronomy.

He found that this fitted the observations well, and also gave an estimate for the speed of light, and showed that the stellar parallax, if any, with extremes in June and December, was far too small to measure at the precision available to Bradley.

This discovery of what became known as the aberration of light was, for all realistic purposes, conclusive evidence for the movement of the Earth, and hence for the correctness of Aristarchus', Copernicus', and Kepler's theories; it was announced to the Royal Society in January 1729.

[12] The publication of Bradley's observations was delayed by disputes about their ownership; but they were finally issued by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in two folio volumes (1798, 1805).