It appears to have been used by James Bradley, but its practical development is mainly from Sir William Rowan Hamilton, who published an account of it in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy in 1846.
This discovery of what became known as the aberration of light was, for all realistic purposes, conclusive evidence for the movement of the Earth, and hence for the correctness of Aristarchus' and Kepler's theories; it was announced to the Royal Society in January 1729 (Phil. Trans. xxxv. 637).
When the first Ordnance Survey map was published in 1801, the official Prime Meridian of Great Britain was the one established by the third Astronomer Royal, James Bradley.
Beginning in 1886, he observed 829 stars in Bradley's directory to determine if they had companion stars.
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He superintended the publication of the works of Archimedes which were prepared for the press by Torelli (1792), and, with much effort, the second volume of Bradley's Greenwich Royal Observatory Astronomical Observations, commenced by Thomas Hornsby (1st ser., 1798–1805).
He corresponded with James Bradley, was the first to represent the effects of nutation in the solar tables, and introduced, in 1741, the use of the transit-instrument at the Paris Observatory.
James Bradley served 4½ years in the Bradwall Reformatory School, and Peter Barrett was sent to a Reformatory in Warwirkshire.