Sir James South (October 1785 – October 19 1867) was a British astronomer.

He helped found the Astronomical Society of London, and it was under his name that a petition was successfully submitted to obtain a royal charter in 1831, whereupon it became the Royal Astronomical Society.

He and John Herschel jointly produced a catalogue of 380 double stars in 1824, reobserving many of the double stars that had been discovered by William Herschel. He then continued and observed another 458 double stars over the following year.

He won the Copley Medal in 1826 and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in that same year. He was knighted in 1831. Craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor.

He was involved in a notorious lawsuit brought against him by the instrument maker Edward Troughton over an equatorial-mount telescope which the latter had constructed for him, which South considered defective. Troughton sued him for payment and won. South promptly demolished the telescope; the lens, which had been purchased separately, was preserved and presented to the Dublin Observatory in 1862.

External links

• National Portrait Gallery portrait

Obituary

• MNRAS 28 (1868) 69