Samuel Molyneux FRS was an amateur astronomer and politician who sat in the British House of Commons between 1715 and 1728 and in the Irish House of Commons from 1727 to 1728.
13 Facts About Samuel Molyneux
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Samuel Molyneux was born in Chester, England in 1689 and was the second son of William Samuel Molyneux, who was known for his work related to optics.
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Samuel Molyneux's mother was Lucy Domville, daughter of Sir William Domville, the Attorney General for Ireland.
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Samuel Molyneux studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1708 and a Master of Arts in 1710.
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Samuel Molyneux was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1712.
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Samuel Molyneux is best known for his work with Bradley in attempting to measure the parallax of Gamma Draconis leading to the discovery of the aberration of light.
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Samuel Molyneux was interested in detecting parallax that others such as Robert Hooke had attempted but failed to detect.
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Unlike Hooke, Samuel Molyneux had large amounts of patience and had resources to expend.
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Samuel Molyneux commissioned a larger set of telescopes and employed James Bradley as an expert who had more astronomical and mathematical knowledge.
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Bradley and Samuel Molyneux were surprised to find that rather than detect a parallax they detected an unexplained wobble of the star.
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Samuel Molyneux died shortly before Bradley realized that the observed changes they were seeing was in fact due to the aberration of light.
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Samuel Molyneux was Member of Parliament for Bossiney in Cornwall from 1715 to 1722, for St Mawes from 1726 to 1727, and for Exeter from 1727 to 1728.
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Samuel Molyneux served as Secretary to the Prince of Wales from 1715 to 1727 and as Lord of the Admiralty from 1727 to 1728.