Alexander, Arthur Francis O’Donel

Born England, 9 November 1896

Died Dorchester, England, 29 January 1971

Arthur F. O’Donel Alexander, an amateur astronomer, applied his outstanding organizational and analytical abilities to the collation of planetary observations. His books on Saturn and Uranus are models of careful historical research and masterly presentation and are still accepted as standard reference works on these two planets. An historian by training, Alexander was an educational administrator by profession. He obtained his B.A. degree in 1918 from University College, Exeter, England, to which he had won an open scholarship in 1915. He was the first student of the college to secure first-class honors in history. Alexander taught for 3 years in the United Kingdom, and then moved to Japan where, until 1924, he instructed science students in English at the Matsuyama National College. On his return to the United Kingdom he took up the posts of secretary for education and executive officer of Londonderry County...