On 1st October 1824, in his twenty-third year, he was elected to a Trinity fellowship. Macaulay, who was elected the same day, speaks somewhere of the especial value he placed on this most pleasant honour, but he was thinking of the life of a resident Fellow, and Airy at once told his tutor of his intention of going out into the world. He began, however, in the October term to give mathematical lectures in Trinity. The reader is not surprised to find that Airy now gave up the custom which he “had followed with such regularity for five years,
namely, that of daily writing Latin.” I wonder what other Senior Wrangler wrote Latin prose while reading for the Tripos?
We have seen that the great stream of his original work had been established. In 1822 he wrote one paper, in 1824 three, in 1825 two, in 1826 three, and in 1827 five; and this stream was to flow for sixty-five years, i.e., until 1887!
On December 1826 he was elected to the Lucasian professorship, and thus became a successor of Sir Isaac Newton. The salary when Airy was elected was but £99 a year; the present holder is more adequately paid, and receives £850 annually. His prospects in 1827 were, however, not very good. He had to resign his tutorship when he became a professor, and thus lost £51 of income. As he would not take orders, his fellowship, according to the atrocious system of the day, would come to an end in seven years. But he surely judged wisely in accepting the poorly paid office. He had to lecture in a room, not intended for the purpose, in the old Botanic Gardens. This region is now occupied by science buildings, but bears a memory of its former history in the great Sophora tree flourishing there.
He was soon to obtain better paid work, for in 1828 he was elected Plumian professor, and giving up his college rooms he moved into the Observatory, where his official career as an astronomer began. During the following years, up to 1834, he was busy with professorial work and his duties at the Cambridge Observatory. He began to receive public acknowledgments of his character and his work. In
1835 he was elected a correspondent of the French Academy. In the same year Sir Robert Peel (p. 106) offered him a pension of £300 per annum, with no terms of any kind, and allowing it to be settled, “if I should think fit, on my wife.”
On 11th June 1835 the First Lord of the Admiralty wrote offering Airy the office of Astronomer Royal, which was accepted. Another honour—that of Knighthood—he declined in the same year. In 1863 the same honour was again offered and declined with dignity, on the ground that fees of “about £30” were demanded. Finally, in 1872 he was offered the K.C.B. and knighted by the Queen at Osborne. In reply to the congratulations of a friend, Airy wrote: “The real charm of these public compliments seems to be, that they excite the sympathies and elicit the kind expressions of private friends or of official superiors as well as subordinates. In every way I have derived pleasure from these.”
With regard to other honours, it is pleasant to discover that Airy, one of the most accurate of men, could make minute mistakes. Thus in 1863 he speaks (p. 254) of the academical degree of D.C.L. held by him in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But at Cambridge the degree in question is known as LL.D.
It may be well to give here, irrespective of dates, some of the other honours received by Airy.
In 1867 he (in company with Connop Thirlwall) was elected to the newly instituted Honorary Fellowships of Trinity—a distinction which seems to have given him especial pleasure.