Edward Francis Pigot, Priest-Scientist, 1858-1929

Edward Pigot is an understated and unique individual in Australia's scientific history.  His extraordinary career is summarised at websites such as the Australian Dictionary of Biography, and Wikipedia.  A very readable brief account of his career is also published by the Geological Society of Australia.  Pigot's scientific and personal legacy is a research interest of Dr. David Branagan, who has authored a detailed account of Pigot's career, which will shortly be published in the The Journal of the History of Earth Sciences Society.  This paper will be published in two consecutive journal editions, appearing around February and September 2010.  Dr. Branagan's recent [2009] radio broadcasts discussing Pigot's career, caught my attention, particularly Pigot's abortive attempts at measuring Earth tides down mine shafts at Cobar, NSW.  Measuring Earth tides is tricky even with all the advantages of modern seismic instrumentation, and would have been extremely challenging in Pigot's day.  I was so taken by Dr. Branagan's lively account of this extraordinary priest-scientist, that I have named my modest seismic observatory in his honour, the Edward Pigot Seismic Observatory. This should not be confused with seismic, astronomical and meteorological observatories that Pigot established at Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview, Sydney.