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I. Lindemann in Physics

1987; Royal Society; Volume: 41; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1098/rsnr.1987.0004

1743-0178

Robert Berman,

History and Developments in Astronomy

LINDEMANN’S father was of French Alsacian origin and came to England around the time that Germany annexed Alsace-Lorraine in 1871. He married a widow whose first husband had bought ‘Sidholme’, the largest of the Regency villas in the part of Sidmouth (Devon) called Elysian Fields. The house was built in 1826 by the Earl of Buckingham and stands in 14 acres of grounds with 300 different varieties of tree. An addition had soon to be made to the house when the Earl fell out with the local rector and wanted to hold his own services; it became the music room in the Lindemanns’ time and was where Lindemann heard Paderewski play. Lindemann’s father had a laboratory and observatory in the grounds and some of Lindemann’s research was done there. When Mrs Lindemann died in 1927 the house passed to her son by her first marriage and the Lindemanns were distressed that he immediately sold it with the contents, forcing them to move. The observatory was given to the University College of the South West (which became Exeter University) and this was acknowledged in the 5th Annual Report and Prospectus of 1927. An Adam Hilger astronomical spectroscope dating from about 1885 is in a show case at the University and carries the statement ‘This spectroscope was probably used at Sidmouth, where A. F. Lindemann (father of the late Lord Cherwell) had an observatory at his home’. ‘Sidholme’ is now a Methodist Guild holiday home.