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- About
Prof. Mervyn Archdall Ellison was the son of William Frederick Archdall Ellison, Director of Armagh Observatory, and his first wife, Elizabeth Havelock Blackburn. Home-schooled in Co. Wexford where his father had a private observatory before taking up the post of the Director in 1918, Mervyn was then educated at the Royal School, Armagh – a stone’s throw from the Observatory – while also being taught practical astronomy by his father. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1931, where he also obtained an M.Sc. (Master of Science) in 1932 and Sc.D. (Doctorate in Science) in 1944. He served under Prof. Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett FRS – later made Baron Blackett of Chelsea in Greater London – in the operational research group of the admiralty during the Second World War.
During all this time, Mervyn Ellison has focused his work on solar physics, including flares and prominences. He was appointed Director of Dunsink Observatory in 1958, a revived role under the then recently-established Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), and a senior professor in the School of Cosmic Physics there. He remained in those roles until his untimely death from illness in 1963.
