Notes on a memorial to Alfred Barrett Biggs, astronomer

The latitude of Launceston is officially given as 41C 26' 1" south and the longitude as 147C 7' 49·5" (east, but there is at present not the slightest indication of the position from which those calculations were determined. It is proposed by the Northern Branch of the Royal Society to mark the position adequately and fittingly by the erection of a pillar suitauiy inscribed. The observations were made by the late Mr. Alfred Barrett Biggs, F.R.S., who for many years had an observatory in what was then called the Depot Grounds, but which to·day is termed Royal Park. Mr. Biggs was one of that noble band o£ amateur scientists to whom the world owes so much. He was born in London on the lOth of April, 1825 and arrived in Hobart Town with his parents in 1833.