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Professor Sir Francis Graham Smith (1923 - )
Thirteenth Astronomer Royal (1982—90)
Francis Graham Smith began his degree at Downing College Cambridge in 1941
but did not graduate until 1946. Like Ryle, Smith spent most of the war working
at the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern. He stayed on at
Cambridge after graduating to work at the Cavendish on radiowaves from the Sun.
He worked with Ryle investigating a radio source in the constellation of Cygnus
which he later followed up, comparing findings with various optical astronomers.
In 1952 he went to America to work at the Carnegie Institute in Washington DC
returning to Cambridge in 1953. He published a paper with Ryle in 1957
suggesting radio signals from orbiting satellites could be used to aid
navigation. Throughout the 1960s and 70s Smith worked on radio astronomy in
Manchester (at Jodrell Bank), at the Royal Greenwich Observatory (Royal Greenwich Observatory)
and at Sussex University. In 1976 he was made Director of Royal Greenwich Observatory
where he was involved in setting up the Northern Hemisphere Observatory on the
island of La Palma in Canaries. This Observatory is still internationally run to
this day. In 1981 moved back to Manchester to become Director of Jodrell Bank
and in 1982 became Astronomer Royal.
In 1990 the Observatory moved site again, from Herstmonceux to Cambridge, where
it remained until its closure in October 1998
