First, permit me to say, I was hoping to come across a solar eclipse during the Regency era in Great Britain’s history, but I struck out. Neither did one occur during Jane Austen’s lifetime, though I suppose I should have known such to be true, for surely, Austen would have added it to one of her stories.

This will be the first total solar eclipse to cross the United States since August 2017, and the path of totality is expected to run straight through Indianapolis, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; and Burlington, Vermont.

Here in North Carolina, where I live near Charlotte, Tapoco to the west is set to see the highest eclipse magnitude at 88.5%, and Bald Head Island to the east will see the least at 75.5%, according to Eclipse2024.org. Everyone in between will see a partial eclipse within that range. I am excited.

I have my solar glasses at a ready for today event. If you have no solar glasses DO NOT LOOK UP TO THE SUN.

Those in Great Britain today, have a chance at seeing a partial eclipse visible from parts of Britain just before sunset.

Remember: A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s apparent diameter is larger than the Sun’s, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth’s surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of miles or kilometres wide.

Those in England have the following chances of solar eclipses through 2030 (list provided by Wikipedia).

• 8 April 2024
  • A partial eclipse may be visible from parts of Britain just before sunset.
• 29 March 2025
  • Partial ranging from 40% partial in Kent to about 50% partial in the north-west of Scotland.
• 12 August 2026
  • An eclipse which is total across Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean and Spain results in a very large partial eclipse across Britain with western Ireland the most favoured, at around 96% in Cornwall falling to 91% in Aberdeen.
• 2 August 2027
  • Partial ranging from about 30% partial in the north of Scotland to almost 60% partial in the south-west of England. Total eclipse from Gibraltar.
• 26 January 2028
  • About 40% partial at sunset.
• 1 June 2030
  • About 50% partial at sunrise.

BUT WHAT OF THE TWO SOLAR ECLIPSES TAKING PLACE DURING THE GEORGIAN ERA?

The first arrived on 3 May 1715. It was a Total Solar Eclipse and could be seen from Cornwall in southwestern part of England to Lincolnshire and Norfolk in the east.

It was known as Halley’s Eclipse, after Edmond Halley (1656–1742) who was the second man to be appointed Astronomer Royal, predicted this eclipse to within 4 minutes accuracy. Halley observed the eclipse from London where the city of London enjoyed 3 minutes 33 seconds of totality. He also drew a predictive map showing the path of totality across the Kingdom of Great Britain. The original map was about 20 miles off the observed eclipse path, mainly due to his use of inaccurate lunar ephemeris. In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly velocity) over time. Historically, positions were given as printed tables of values, given at regular intervals of date and time. [“ephemeris”. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1992.]

After the eclipse, Halley corrected the eclipse path, and added the path and description of the 1724 total solar eclipse. [Westfall, John; Sheehan, William (2014). Celestial Shadows: Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations. Springer. p. 115.]

Drawing upon lunar tables made by the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed, William Whiston produced a more technical predictive eclipse map around the same time as Halley. Both Halley’s and Whiston’s maps were published by John Senex in March 1715. [Pasachoff, J. M. (1999) “Halley and his maps of the Total Eclipses of 1715 and 1724“ Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (ISSN 1440-2807), Vol. 2, No. 1, p. 39–54.]

The eclipse was also observed in Ireland, where large crowds turned out in Dublin to watch it: the weather in Dublin was exceptionally cold and wet, and the eminent judge Joseph Deane caught a fatal chill as a result, [Mason, William Monck The History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick’s Dublin Dublin 1820], although Elrington Ball more prosaically states that his death was probably due to gout. [Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926.]

Note: Great Britain did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752, so the date was at the time considered 22 April 1715.

The second solar eclipse arrived 22 May 1724. This solar eclipse crossed Ireland and Great Britain near sunset, northwest to a southeast track, from Galway to southern Wales and Devon in the west, eastwards to Hampshire and Sussex, but passing to the south of London. It was to be 203 years before a total solar eclipse was next witnessed from the British mainland, which had previously seen a total eclipse just nine years before, and Ireland will not see a total solar eclipse until 2090. [Littmann, Mark; Espenak, Fred; Willcox, Ken (July 17, 2008). Totality: Eclipses of the Sun. OUP Oxford. accessed via Google Books]

From the NASA Astrophysics Data – The Observatory ~ abstract ~ Lynn, W. T. (June 1892). “The total solar eclipse of 1724”. Correspondence. The Observatory. 15: 263–264. https://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1892Obs….15..263L

Wikipedia has a list of solar eclipses visible from Great Britain, showing those from the 5th Century to today’s and listing those through the 22nd Century.