“In my first negociations with the Admiralty referring to acceptance of the office of Astronomer Royal, in 1834, Lord Auckland being then First Lord of the Admiralty, I had stipulated that, as my successor at Cambridge would be unprepared to carry on my Lectures, I should have permission to give a final course of Lectures there.  At the end of 1835 Lord Auckland was succeeded by Lord Minto:  I claimed the permission from him and he refused it.  When this was known in Cambridge a petition was presented by many Cambridge residents, and Lord Minto yielded.  On April 18th I went to Cambridge with my wife, residing at the Bull Inn, and began Lectures on April 21st:  they continued (apparently) to May 27th.  My lecture-room was crowded (the number of names was 110) and the lectures gave great satisfaction.  I offered to the Admiralty to put all the profits in their hands, and transmitted a cheque to the Accountant General of the Navy:  but the Admiralty declined to receive them.

“On June 4th the Annual Visitation of the Observatory was held, Mr F. Baily in the Chair.  I presented a written Report on the Observatory (a custom which I had introduced at Cambridge) in which I did not suppress the expression of my feelings about chronometer business.  The Hydrographer, Captain Beaufort, who was one of the Official Visitors, was irritated:  and by his influence the Report was not printed.  I kept it and succeeding Reports safe for three years, and then the Board of Visitors agreed to print them; and four Reports were printed together, and bound with the Greenwich Observations of 1838.

“In the course of this year I completed the volume of Observations made at Cambridge Observatory in 1835 and on Nov. 10th the printed copies were distributed.  About the end of 1835 the Dome for the Northumberland Telescope was erected:  but apparently the polar frame was not erected.”

The following account of an accident which occurred during the construction of the dome is extracted from a letter by Airy to his wife dated 1836 Jan. 31st.  “The workmen’s account of the dome blowing off is very curious:  it must have been a strange gust.  It started suddenly when the men were all inside and Beaumont was looking up at it:  the cannon balls were thrown in with great violence (one of them going between the spokes of Ransomes’ large casting), and instantly after the dome had started, the boards of the outside scaffolding which had been tossed up by the same gust dropped down into the gap which the dome had left.  It is a wonder that none of the men were hurt and that the iron was not broken.  The dome is quite covered and I think does not look so well as when the hooping was visible.”