Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait - School of Mathematics ...

EDINBURGH. 1837-48
Peter Guthrie Tait was born at Dalkeith on 28 April, 1831. He was
educated in his very early years at the Dalkeith Grammar School. On his
father's death his mother came to Edinburgh with her young family of two
girls and one boy ;
and
after a year or two at Circus Place School, Tait
entered the Academy at the age of ten. He and his sisters finally lived
with their uncle, John Ronaldson, in an old-fashioned roomy house called
Somerset Cottage, which is still occupied by the Misses Tait. Mr Ronaldson
was a banker by profession, but was keenly interested in many scientific
pursuits. He would take his nephew geological rambles in the long summer
days, and study the planets and stars through his telescopes during the dark
or he would dabble in the mysteries of photography which had
winter nights ;
just been invented by Daguerre
and Talbot. There is little doubt that the
receptive mind of the young lad must have been greatly influenced by his
uncle's predilection for scientific study. A small room on the left of the
hall as one enters Somerset Cottage contains to this day the stand and
tube of a Newtonian reflector, and a good serviceable refractor of two-inch
aperture. The room has been long used by Miss Tait for storing her
canvasses and artistic materials ; but the scientific contents of the apartment
have never been disturbed since 1854, when P. G. Tait definitely made his
home in Belfast. On his return to Edinburgh in i860 his interests were
in other directions than observational astronomy, and the old telescopes
and theodolite were left in undisturbed possession. Nevertheless, his early
appreciation of astronomical instruments declared itself from time to time
when he purchased a beautiful speculum or a complete reflector for the
Natural Philosophy Museum. In his Scrap Book Tait preserved a neatly
constructed chart of date 1844, showing graphically the positions of Jupiter's
satellites on successive nights from Sept. 18 to Sept. 31. These "Observa-
tions on Jupiter" were made by himself when he was a little over thirteen
years of age. Probably they were interrupted by
bad weather.
The environment amid which Tait spent his schooldays is well described
in the Chronicles of the Gumming Club, a remarkable book printed for
private circulation in 1887. Written by the late Lt.-Col. Alexander