After a conventional schooling supplemented by travel in Switzerland and France, he worked for some years as a civil servant in the British War Office.

[9] He settled in Wimbledon, South London after marrying Winifred James, who helped translate at least four French scientific works into English.

[11][12] In the 1860s Lockyer became fascinated by electromagnetic spectroscopy as an analytical tool for determining the composition of heavenly bodies.

An observation of the new yellow line had been made earlier by Janssen at the 18 August 1868 solar eclipse[13] , and because their papers reached the French academy on the same day, he and Lockyer usually are awarded joint credit for helium's discovery.

[14] To facilitate the transmission of ideas between scientific disciplines, Lockyer established the general science journal Nature in 1869.

Assuming orientation of the Heel-Stone of Stonehenge to sunrise at midsummer he calculated the construction of the monument to have taken place in 1680 BC.

In 1903, Lockyer started a second marriage, to suffragist Thomazine Mary Brodhurst (née Browne).