The Chronicle, Spring 2019

3 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

Astronomically Generous In February, we were delighted to welcome back to Teddies Lord Paddy Clanwilliam and his daughter Tamara on the occasion of their generous donation to the School of a Meade Telescope. Tamara and her sister Natalya were both at Teddies. Tamara left Oakthorpe in 2009, and Natalya left Mac’s last year. In his address, Lord Clanwilliam expressed great gratitude to the School for having looked after his two daughters

so well. Head of Physics, Matthew Rigby, explains below what this gift will mean to the Physics Department. ‘The Department is absolutely delighted to be the custodian of such an incredible gift for the pupils at St Edward’s. The Meade telescope is certainly a very serious piece of kit and allows us the opportunity to realise our dual ambitions of inspiring our pupils with Astronomy and bringing the subject alive as a practical discipline. We aim to have a working observatory situated on the roof of the Physical Sciences building within a short time-frame, affording pupils the chance to use the telescope directly and to view pictures in the comfort of the labs below in real-time. Clearly, these are very exciting times for all budding astronomers at the School and the generous gift could not have been more timely with the revamped astronomy content of the IGCSE course we cover.’

Matthew Rigby, Head of Physics, Lord Clanwilliam, the Warden and Tamara Meade OSE