of other ladies did computational work at the observatory, including several further members of the Grant family. Frederick A. (Fred) Hammond (born 1853), meteorological assistant from 1 October 1894 to 1909. Hugh C. Mason (1873–1936), junior astronomical assistant from 1 December 1897 to June 1900. Robert F. Rendell (born 1873), FRAS, formerly of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, senior astronomical assistant from April 1903 to March 1907. Arthur E. Hodgson (born 1880), FRAS, formerly of the Solar Physics Observatory at South Kensington, junior astronomical assistant from May 1903 to the end of 1909, and senior astronomical assistant from 1 January 1910 until the observatory closed. Research on the motion of the moon During the 1880s the discrepancies between the best available lunar tables (published by Hansen in 1857) and observations had become so large that navigators could no longer use the moon's position to determine their longitude accurately. Nevill tackled the problem by first verifying Hansen's treatment of lunar perturbations caused by the direct action of the sun. He then devised an improved method for calculating perturbations caused by Venus. The remaining errors he ascribed to the gravitational pull of the other planets, whose effects were very difficult to calculate. This work was published, among others, in a paper in the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (1885), describing the corrections required by Hansen's tables. He next studied all available lunar observations since the middle of the 17th century and reduced them to a uniform basis. Comparing these observations to Hansen's tables, he used the discrepancies to derive the amplitudes and periods of appropriate correction terms. After all these improvements the tables provided an excellent fit to all lunar observations made since 1650. The work was ready for publication by the end of 1894, but no funds were available to have it printed. Each year Nevill urged the Natal government in his annual Report of the Government Astronomer to provide funds for publication, but to no avail. In his report for 1898 he wrote despairingly: The investigations of the errors in the lunar tables have been wrapped up in brown paper, tied up with red tape, and put away on a shelf until such time as a vote can be obtained to publish it… The next year disaster struck when the manuscript was damaged during a rainstorm owing to a leak in the observatory's roof. In subsequent years similar work was