Woolley, Sir Richard (1906-1986), was the United Kingdom’s astronomer royal from 1956 to 1971. The son of a naval officer, Richard van der Riet Woolley was born on April 24, 1906, in Weymouth, Dorset, England, and educated at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and at Cambridge University. He was the John Couch Adams astronomer at Cambridge University from 1937 to 1939, and director of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory in Australia from 1939 to 1955. He was knighted in 1963. From 1972 until his retirement in 1976, Woolley directed the South Africa Astronomical Observatory. He died on Dec. 24, 1986.
