Pond, John

John Pond, (born 1767, London, England—died September 7, 1836, Blackheath, Kent), sixth astronomer royal of England, who organized the Royal Greenwich Observatory to an efficiency that made possible a degree of observational precision never before achieved.

Pond was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1807 and served from 1811 to 1835 as astronomer royal. During Pond’s term, obsolete and worn-out instruments at Greenwich were replaced and the staff increased from one to six, enabling him to complete in 1833 a catalog of positions of 1,112 stars with an accuracy previously unknown. He was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society from the time of its founding in 1820.