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John Goodricke was born at Groningen, in the Netherlands, on the 17th September 1764. His father (Henry Goodricke) was a British diplomat, his mother (nee Levina Benjamina Sessler) was the daughter of a Dutch merchant.

John was deaf from infancy: at the age of 8 he was sent to Thomas Braidwood’s Academy at Dumbiedykes, Edinburgh, a school specialising in teaching deaf or deaf-mute children. In 1778 Goodricke became a pupil at Warrington Academy, where school records noted that he had become ‘an excellent mathematician’.

He rejoined his family who had moved to York: John’s great-uncle the Rev. Henry Goodricke held office at York and was tenant of part of the Treasurer’s House. By late 1781 John was involved with Edward Pigott in making astronomical observations. The two astronomers were soon concentrating their research on the variable stars, particularly Algol [Beta Persei].

Goodricke’s first published paper was ‘A Series of Observations on, and a Discovery of, the Period of the Variation of the Light of the bright Star in the Head of Medusa, called Algol’; this was read at the Royal Society on May 15th 1783. He published a supplement to these observations ‘On the Period of the Changes of Light in the Star Algol’ in April 1784, ‘Observations of a new Variable Star’ [Beta Lyrae] in January 1785, and observations on the variability in Delta Cephei in June 1785. For his work on Algol he was awarded the Royal Society’s annual Godfrey Copley Medal in 1783; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in April 1786, but died on April 20th 1786, aged 21. According to Turner he ‘fell a victim to his favourite study […] in consequence of a cold from exposure to night air in astronomical observations.’

The two families stayed in contact after Goodricke’s death: Goodricke’s astronomical papers were sent to Edward Pigott in 1791, Charles Grey Fairfax (Edward Pigott’s younger brother who had assumed the name Fairfax on inheriting Gilling Castle) married Goodricke’s sister in 1794, and Levina Goodricke (John’s mother) was executrix of Nathaniel Pigott’s will.

The cause and date of John’s deafness is uncertain. Most sources suggest that he became deaf after a fever in childhood. John Ford, in notes published in the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s Report for 1868, says ‘At five years old he had scarlet fever ending in total deafness’; unfortunately, he did not give his source of information.

There is disagreement over the room where John Goodricke made his observations. Melmore’s article concludes that the room was on the top floor of the south-east wing of the Treasurer’s House. Forrester disagrees; in his MS. (chapter 8, pp. 17-19) he gives reasons for believing Goodricke’s room to have been in the central range of the building, demolished by Frank Green to create the Great Hall of the Treasurer’s House as it is today.

Nathaniel Pigott (1725-1804) and Edward Pigott (1753-1825) were astronomers notable for their work with John Goodricke and the observation of variable stars.

Nathanial Pigott
Nathaniel Pigott was a gentleman of leisure, a noted amateur astronomer and surveyor. The grandson of Viscount Fairfax of Gilling Castle in Yorkshire, Nathaniel Pigott led a peripatetic life, living for many years at Caen in Normandy and later at Louvain in Belgium (then the Austrian Netherlands). In 1749 he married Anna Mathurine de Beriot of Javingue.

In 1772-1773, at the request of the authorities in Brussels, he took a series of astronomical observations to establish the exact latitude and longitude of the principal towns of the province.

In the mid 1770s the family returned to Britain and by 1780 were living at York. In the garden of their house in Bootham (now no. 33, see York City Archives accession E98 f.58 v., Register of deeds) Nathaniel had an observatory built, where he took many transit observations. His primary interest seems to have been observations to establish the latitude of York. Following the death of his wife in 1792, he gave up the lease of the house in Bootham. He died in York on May 31st 1804.

Edward Pigott
Edward Pigott the eldest surviving son of Nathaniel Pigott (1725-1804), was involved in his father’s observations from an early age; he was one of the observers of the transit of Venus of 1769.

He sent his first paper to the Royal Society, ‘Account of a nebula in Coma Berenices’ in September 1779. His observation of a comet in November 1781 is mentioned at the beginning of John Goodricke’s ‘Journal of astronomical observations’. Goodricke [John Goodricke, 1764-1786], initially a pupil, soon became a respected colleague. From 1782 the two astronomers were engaged in diligent study of the variable stars and cross-checked their observations.

Pigott discovered the comet which bears his name in November 1783. In December 1784 he published ‘Observations of a new variable star’ [Eta Antinoi/ Eta Aquilae]. Accompanying his father to Louvain in 1786 he assisted in observations of the transit of Mercury. He sent to the Royal Society an account of an auroral display viewed at Kensington in February 1789. In 1796 he communicated a paper ‘On the periodical changes of brightness of two fixed stars’ [R Coronæ Borealis and R Scuti] ; a paper on the period of R Scuti followed in 1805.

He was at Fontainebleau in 1803 when war broke out between Britain and France and was not allowed to return to the United Kingdom until 1806. His observations of the comets of 1807 and 1811 were communicated to the French Academie des Sciences. His latter years were spent at Bath, and he died there on June 27th 1825.