Thomas Morton
Morton was a keen astronomer and built his own
observatory, in 1818, in the town of Kilmarnock;
a seventy foot high square tower, in what became known as Morton
Place. The tower was demolished in 1957. Andrew
Barclay, the locomotive builder, was a rival of Mortons in
astronomy and this rivalry extended into
business.
Morton also made Dumfries' Camera
Obscura, for the Dumfries and
Maxwelltown Astronomical Society, as an instrument for observing
sun-spots. It was installed on the 28th July 1836, and is the
oldest and last, of the 'astronomical' obscuras still working in
Britain, the others, like that in Edinburgh, are merely used to
view the surrounding scenery. Morton had been elected, one year
earlier, an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts -
no mean feat for the son of an Ayrshire bricklayer. He died in
1862.
