title: The Ancient Mariner and the transit of Venus.
abstract: The achievements of William Wales FRS - astronomer, classical scholar, demographer, editor, mathematician, meteorologist and humane teacher - have been overshadowed by the fame of Cook's extraordinary voyages, and overlooked as a significant influence on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's early development. The Royal Society sent Wales to Hudson Bay, Canada, and James Cook to Tahiti, both to observe the 1769 transit of Venus as part of an international project to calculate solar parallax, and hence the distance to the Sun. Wales later taught mathematics and navigation science at Christ's Hospital School to a precocious Coleridge, whose creative mind translated tales of polar adventures into memorable poetry.
authors.affiliation: 907-981 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 1A8. rgshort@spectranet.ca
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Griffin-Short
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D004739:England; D005118:Extraterrestrial Environment; D005197:Famous Persons; D049671:History, 18th Century; D008433:Mathematics / Q000266:history*; D011037:Poetry as Topic / Q000266:history; D012106:Research / Q000266:history; D012767:Ships / Q000266:history; D018536:Venus