Bradley James

Bradley, James, astronomer, was born in 1092 at Sherborne. His mathematical bent attracted the notice of Halley, Sir Isaac Newton, and other leading scientists of the time, and in 1721 he was appointed professor of astronomy at Oxford. A few years afterwards he published his discovery of the aberration of light, and in 1748 his discovery of the varying inclination of the axis of the earth to the ecliptic. Meanwhile, in 1742, he had succeeded Halley as Astronomer-Royal at Greenwich. His astronomical observations, numbering about 60,000, were published at Oxford in 1805. He died in 1762 at Chalford, Gloucestershire.