Robert Peirson

Robert Peirson (2 June 1821 – 15 June 1891) was an English astronomer and theoretical physicist.

Born into a wealthy family at their residence at No. 5, Barnsbury Park, Islington, Middlesex, Robert Peirson lived his life there except during his residence at Cambridge.

He was admitted a Foundation Scholar in 1842, and took his degree as Third Wrangler in 1845, the year of Dr Parkinson and Sir William Thomson (now Lord Kelvin). He was admitted a Fellow of the College in 1849 in succession to Mr Blick, who had accepted the living of Brandesburton; and kept his Fellowship till 1855. He does not appear to have held any College office. In 1850 he was awarded the first Adams Prize, founded in 1848, for an essay on The Theory of the Long Inequality of Uranus and Neptune, which was printed in vol. ix of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.