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John Brinkley (1763—September 14, 1835) was the first Royal Astronomer of Ireland and later, Bishop of Cloyne.

Brinkley was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk and was baptised there January 31, 1767, the illegitimate son of Sarah Brinkley, a butcher's daughter. His exact date of birth is unknown; he has often been assigned the birth year 1763, as at least one obituary gives his age at death in 1835 as 72.^[1] However, his memorial at Trinity College, Dublin states that he died aged 70; also, he was recorded as being 17 upon matriculation at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in August 1783, both of which imply a slightly later birth year. The college admitted him as son of John Toler Brinkley, a vintner, suggesting that a John Toler was perhaps his real father.^[2]

He graduated B.A. 1788 as senior wrangler, was elected a fellow of the college and was awarded M.A. in 1791. He was ordained at Lincoln Cathedral the same year, and in 1792 became the second Andrews Professor of Astronomy at the University of Dublin. His main work concerned stellar astronomy and he published his Elements of Plane Astronomy in 1808. He was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society in 1824.

Brinkley's observations that several stars shifted their apparent place in the sky in the course of a year were disproved at Greenwich by his contemporary John Pond, the Astronomer Royal.

In 1826 he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne in Cork, a position he held for the remaining nine years of his life.

John Brinkley died in 1835 at Leeson Street, Dublin and was buried in Trinity College chapel. He was succeeded at Dunsink Observatory by William Rowan Hamilton.

By his wife Esther Weld (a descendant of Thomas Weld), Brinkley had two sons: John, a clergyman; and Matthew, who married a daughter of Dean Richard Graves and was the father of Francis Brinkley.^[3]

1. ^ Gentleman's Magazine. November 1835, p. 547.
2. ^ Venn, John. Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College 1349-1897. vol. ii, pp. 107-8. Cambridge University Press, 1898.
3. ^ Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland, 1912. (Weld and Brinkley pedigrees)

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