E. Walter (Edward Walter) Maunder

Born in London in 1851, Edward Walter Maunder became a solar astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, where he spent much of his working life studying sunspots and solar activity. His name is now closely linked with the Maunder Minimum, the period from roughly 1645 to 1715 when sunspots were unusually scarce.

Maunder was not only a researcher but also a gifted communicator. He helped found the British Astronomical Association and served as an editor of its journal, encouraging serious astronomy among readers outside the professional world. His work on the changing latitudes of sunspots also helped establish the famous "butterfly diagram" of the solar cycle.

He remained active as a writer and lecturer as well as an observer, and his books helped bring astronomy to a broad audience. He died in 1928, remembered as one of the key figures in early solar astronomy and in the popular spread of astronomical knowledge.