Hugh Percy Wilkins

Who was Hugh Percy Wilkins?

Hugh Percy Wilkins was a Welsh-born engineer and amateur astronomer.

He was born in Carmarthen, where he received his early education, then lived near Llanelli prior to moving to England. During the First World War he served in the Royal Army Corps.

Professionally he worked as a mechanical engineer and a civil servant, but he is most noted for his efforts as an amateur astronomer, particularly as a selenographer. He was elected to the British Astronomical Association in 1918 and for a period he was the Director of the Lunar Section.

He produced a 100" map of the Moon, which included new names for a number of features. In 1948 he put forward a request to the IAU that twenty-two new names be adopted. However he was turned down on the premise that the features were small or near the limb and already had letter designations.

In 1951 he published a 300"-diameter map of the Moon, considered by some as the culmination of the art of selenography prior to the space age. However his maps were dense with detail, some of which was fictitious, making them less useful. He made additional requests to the IAU in 1952 and 1955, which were turned down. However the Goodacre and Mee crater names from a 1926 map he had produced did become part of the lunar nomenclature.