William Selwyn (astronomer)

William Selwyn, FRS, FRAS (19 February 1806 – 24 April 1875) was a Church of England clergyman, canon of Ely Cathedral, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, and amateur astronomer.

He was appointed Rector of Branston, Leicestershire in 1831, Vicar of Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, in 1846 and Canon Residentiary of Ely in 1833, serving in that capacity until 1875.

Selwyn was seriously ill from 1866 onwards and this, together with his ecclesiastical commitments, prevented the work from being published.

Instead, the prints were donated to the Royal Greenwich Observatory and Selwyn was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1866 as someone "Distinguished as a promoter of the Science of Astronomy and Especially as having applied photography in making numerous records of the state of the Sun's disk.

He had married Juliana Elizabeth, daughter of George Cooke of Carr House, Doncaster.