Lockyer, (Joseph) Norman (1836–1920)

English scientist. He studied the spectra of solar prominences and sunspots. Through his pioneering work in spectroscopy, he discovered the existence of helium. He was knighted in 1897.

Lockyer was born in Rugby, the Midlands, and began as an amateur astronomer. In 1857 he became a civil servant in the War Office but his reputation as an astronomer led to his transfer to the Science and Art Department and to his appointment in 1881 as a professor in the Royal College of Science. He was made Fellow of the Royal Society 1869. In 1869 he founded the scientific journal Nature, which he was to edit for 50 years. He was director of the Solar Physics Observatory in South Kensington, London 1890–1911. On retirement from South Kensington, Lockyer founded the Hill Observatory at Sidmouth in Devon, the name of which was changed after his death to the Norman Lockyer Observatory.

In 1869 Lockyer attached a spectroscope to a 15-cm/6-in telescope and used it to observe solar prominences at times other than during a total solar eclipse. Although Lockyer had been the first to think of it, the same idea had occurred to French astronomer Pierre Janssen, then working in India, and they simultaneously notified the French Academy of Sciences of the same result. Later they worked together, Janssen providing the observations of the Sun's spectrum that led to the discovery of helium.

Lockyer also developed the theory that Stonehenge is oriented towards the direction in which the Sun rises at the time of the summer solstice. From the gradual change in position of the solstitial sunrise, he calculated that the monument must date from 1840 BC, plus or minus 200 years – later confirmed by radiocarbon dating.