John Goldingham

Who was John Goldingham?

John Goldingham was the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, appointed in 1802. Goldingham headed the Madras Survey School later which grew into the Guindy Engineering College and then Anna University. Born in London in 1767, Goldingham was hired by astronomer-sailor Michael Topping as his assistant in 1788.

Goldingham was put in charge of building an observatory in 1792, and later appointed as the Presidency Civil Engineer in 1800. Although a mathematician, he managed to learn both astronomy and engineering. In 1796, he married Maria Louisa Popham, niece of Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham, in St. Mary's in Fort St. George. In 1802, Goldingham formulated the Madras time which was 5 hours and 21 minutes ahead of GMT thus establishing the closest precedent to Indian Standard Time adopted a century later in 1906.

In 1800, he designed the Banqueting Hall, for which he was granted a commission of 15% on all bills. After the Board of Directors found that Goldingham had drawn 22,500 pagodas¹ as commission on the 180,000 spent on the work till September 1801, the commission was suspended.