Death of Honorary Fellow
Downing is saddened to share the news that Honorary Fellow and alumnus Sir Francis Graham-Smith FRS died on 20 June 2025 at the age of 102.
He matriculated in 1941, studying Astronomy, and went on to complete a PhD. In the late 1940s, he was part of a pioneering group of radio scientists in Cambridge who developed the techniques of the fledgling discipline of Radio Astronomy and worked on the Long Michelson Interferometer.
In 1964, he was appointed Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Manchester, and in 1981, Director of the Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories, part of the University of Manchester at Jodrell Bank. He was also Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory from 1975 to 1981.
A Fellow of the Royal Society and a former President of the Royal Astronomical Society, he was the 13th Astronomer Royal from 1982 to 1990 and was knighted in 1986.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
A tribute can also be found on the Cambridge University Department of Physics website.
Published 25 June 2025