Edward Joshua Cooper

Edward Joshua Cooper (May 1798 – 23 April 1863) was an Irish landowner, politician and astronomer from Markree Castle in County Sligo. He sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1830 to 1841 and from 1857 to 1859, but is best known for his astronomy, and as the creator of Markree Observatory.

His observatory was home to the largest refracting (telescope with a lens) of the 1830s (an almost 14 inch astronomical grade Cauchoix of Paris lens, the largest in the World), and the asteroid 9 Metis was discovered there in the 1840s by his assistant. Several astronomical catalogs were also produced in the 19th century there.

Early life and family Cooper was the oldest son of Edward Synge Cooper MP (1762–1830), and his wife Anne Verelst, daughter of Bengal Governor Harry Verelst.

The observatory was expanded with a five-foot transit by Troughton, and a meridian-circle three feet in diameter, fitted with a seven-inch telescope which had been ordered in 1839 on a visit to the works of Ertel in Bavaria. In 1842 he bought a comet-seeker, also made by Ertel. By 1851 Markree was described as "undoubtedly the most richly furnished of private observatories". Although partially anticipated by Galle's list of 178 sets of elements appended to the 1847 edition of Olbers's 'Abhandlung,' the physical and historical information collected in the notes remained of permanent value, and constituted the work a most useful manual of reference. The preface contains statistics of the distribution in longitude of the perihelia and nodes of both planetary and cometary orbits, showing what seemed more than a chance aggregation in one semicircle. Communications on the same point were presented by him to the Royal Astronomical Society in 1853 (Monthly Notices, xiv. 68), to the Royal Society in 1855 (Proc. vii. 295), and to the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1858 (Report, ii. 27).

Politics At the 1830 general election, Cooper was returned as one of the two members of parliament (MPs) for County Sligo. His family had held one of the two Sligo seats for most of the previous century; his father, who had held the seat until the dissolution, died during the 3 days of polling. All of the book's major claims have been thoroughly refuted by modern scholarship.

The book's preface extensively praises an anonymous collaborator. Cooper wanted to remain anonymous when the book went to press, but by the seventh edition a footnote identified him as mystery editor. Hislop praises Cooper's meticulous attention to detail, his extensive library and his views on Christianity, and thanks him for "the incalculable value of the service which the extraordinary labours of my kind and disinterested friend have rendered to the cause of universal Protestantism."

Death Cooper died aged 64 on 28 April 1863.

His estates were inherited by his nephew Edward Henry Cooper, who initially neglected the observatory, before appointing a series of directors.