Sir Frank Watson Dyson, KBE, FRS, FRSE (8 January 1868 – 25 May 1939) was an English astronomer and the ninth Astronomer Royal. He is remembered today largely for introducing the Greenwich time signal ("six pips") to BBC radio, and for the role he played in proving Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Dyson was born in Measham, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, the son of the Rev Watson Dyson, a Baptist minister, and his wife, Frances Dodwell. The family lived on St John Street in Wirksworth while Frank was one to three years old. They moved to Yorkshire in his youth. There he attended Heath Grammar School, Halifax, and subsequently won scholarships to Bradford Grammar School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics and astronomy, being placed Second Wrangler in 1889.
In 1894 he joined the Royal Astronomical Society, the British Astronomical Association and was given the post of Senior Assistant at Greenwich Observatory and worked on the Astrographic Catalogue, which was published in 1905. He was appointed Astronomer Royal for Scotland from 1905 to 1910, and Astronomer Royal (and Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory) from 1910 to 1933.
In 1928, he introduced in the Observatory a new free-pendulum clock, the most accurate clock available at that time and organised the regular wireless transmission from the GPO wireless station at Rugby of Greenwich Mean Time. He also, in 1924, introduced the distribution of the "six pips" via the BBC. He was for several years President of the British Horological Institute and was awarded their gold medal in 1928.
Dyson was noted for his study of solar eclipses and was an authority on the spectrum of the corona and on the chromosphere. He is credited with organising expeditions to observe the 1919 solar eclipse at Brazil and Príncipe, which he somewhat optimistically began preparing for prior to the Armistice of 11 November 1918.
Dyson presented his observations of the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919 to a joint meeting of the Royal Society and Royal Astronomical Society on 6 November 1919. The observations confirmed Albert Einstein's theory of the effect of gravity on light which until that time had been received with some scepticism by the scientific community.
Fellow of the Royal Society – 1901
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh – 1906
President, Royal Astronomical Society – 1911–1913
Vice-president, Royal Society – 1913–1915
President, British Astronomical Association, 1916–1918
Royal Medal of the Royal Society – 1921
Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific – 1922
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society – 1925
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire – 1926
Gold medal of British Horological Institute – 1928
President of the International Astronomical Union – 1928–1932
Between 1894–1906, Dyson lived at 6 Vanbrugh Hill, Blackheath, London SE3, in a house now marked by a blue plaque.