James Short (mathematician)

In 1732 Maclaurin gave Short access to use his rooms in the university to work on for experiments in the construction of telescopes. Such was the quality of Short's instruments that in recognition of his skill he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society on 24 March 1737.^[2] In Short's first telescopes the specula were made of glass, as suggested by James Gregory, however later he used metallic specula only, and thus succeeded in giving them true parabolic and elliptic shapes.

Short then adopted telescope-making as his profession, which he practised first in Edinburgh up until 1738, after which he transferred to London.

Almost all of Short's telescopes were of the Gregorian form, and some of them even today retain their original high polish and sharp definition.

In 1736 Queen Caroline requested him to instruct her second son, William, in mathematics.

In March 1737 Short was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society^[3] and in 1758 became a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was a founder member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 1754.

Short died in Newington Butts, London in 1768, having made a considerable fortune from his profession.^[2]

• List of astronomical instrument makers
• List of largest optical telescopes historically
• List of largest optical telescopes in the 18th century

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Short (mathematician).

• James Short's Reflecting Telescopes, Reflecting Telescopes, National Museums Scotland Archived 11 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine