About: Joseph Harris (astronomer)

Joseph Harris (1703 – 1764) was a British blacksmith, astronomer, navigator, economist, natural philosopher, government adviser and at the Royal Mint. Of Joseph Harris, the eldest, who married one of the daughters, and heiress, of Thomas Jones, of Tredustan, little has been recorded beyond the information derived from his monument in the church. His talents were highly respectable, and indeed pre-eminent. But though he wrote several astronomical treatises, which are highly thought of, and was esteemed by the learned and great of his day, no biographer has written his life: no anecdotes of him have been preserved; nor have his virtues or talents been recorded farther than as they appear in his works, which in general are anonymous. Indeed, that modesty, which is so amiable in him, seems to