Assistant Director of the University of London Observatory. Sweet oversaw expansion of the Astronomy Department and construction of a new observatory on the university's Garscube site. Upon Sweet's retirement in 1982, the Department of Astronomy was merged into the Department of Natural Philosophy, and John Campbell Brown was appointed to a new Chair of Astrophysics while the Regius Chair remained vacant. Brown was appointed Astronomer Royal for Scotland in 1995, and in 1996 was appointed to the revived Regius Chair of Astronomy. In 2010, the university marked the chair's 250th anniversary with a week of public lectures, an exhibition on inaugural holder Alexander Wilson in the Hunterian Museum., and by hosting the 2010 National Astronomy Meeting. Regius Professors of Astronomy Alexander Wilson (1760) Patrick Wilson (1784) William Meikleham (1799) James Couper (1803) John Nichol FRSE FRAS (1836) Robert Grant FRS (1859) Ludwig Becker FRSE (1893) William Marshall Smart FRSE PRAS LLD RIN (1937) Peter Allan Sweet (1959) John Campbell Brown OBE FRSE Astronomer Royal for Scotland (1996) References Who, What and Where: The History and Constitution of the University of Glasgow. Compiled by Michael Moss, Moira Rankin and Lesley Richmond) See also List of Professorships at the University of Glasgow Astronomy, Regius 1760 establishments in Scotland Astronomy, Regius, Glasgow Astronomy, Glasgow