Nathaniel Bliss

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Nathaniel Bliss
from E. W. Maunder's The Royal Observatory, Greenwich: A Glance at its History and Work (1900)
Born	November 28, 1700 (1700-11-28) Bisley, Gloucestershire, England
Died	September 2, 1764 (aged 63) Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Nationality	United Kingdom
Fields	Astronomy, mathematics
Institutions	Oxford University

The Reverend Nathaniel Bliss (28 November 1700 – 2 September 1764) was an English astronomer of the 18th century, serving as Astronomer Royal between 1762 and 1764.

Bliss was born in the Cotswolds village of Bisley in Gloucestershire and studied at Pembroke College, Oxford. He graduated B.A. in 1720 and M.A. in 1723.

Rector of St Ebb's church in Oxford, he succeeded Edmond Halley as professor of geometry at Oxford University in 1742 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society the same year. He succeeded James Bradley to become the fourth Astronomer Royal in 1762.

He died in Oxford, but was buried close to Halley in St Margaret's churchyard in Lee in south-east London.

v • d • e Savilian Professors of Geometry Henry Briggs (1619) · Peter Turner (1631) · John Wallis (1649) · David Gregory (1691) · Edmond Halley (1704) · Nathaniel Bliss (1742) · Joseph Betts (1765) · John Smith (1766) · Abraham Robertson (1797) · Stephen Peter Rigaud (1810) · Baden Powell (1827) · Henry John Stephen Smith (1861) · James Joseph Sylvester (1883) · William Esson (1897) · Godfrey Harold Hardy (1920) · Edward Charles Titchmarsh (1932) · Michael Atiyah (1963) · Ioan James (1969) · Richard Taylor (1995) · Nigel Hitchin (1997)

v • d • e Astronomers Royal John Flamsteed (1675) · Edmond Halley (1720) · James Bradley (1742) · Nathaniel Bliss (1762) · Nevil Maskelyne (1765) · John Pond (1811) · George Biddell Airy (1835) · William Christie (1881) · Frank Watson Dyson (1910) · Harold Spencer Jones (1933) · Richard van der Riet Woolley (1956) · Martin Ryle (1972) · Francis Graham-Smith (1982) · Arnold Wolfendale (1991) · Martin Rees (1995)