Royal Observer Corps
In 1929 the control of the Observer Corps passed from the county police forces to the Air Ministry, although Chief Constables retained responsibility for personnel and recruitment matters. 1 March 1929 saw the establishment of the new "Headquarters of the Observer Corps" at Hillingdon House, RAF Uxbridge in the west of London, and Air Commodore Edward A D Masterman CB CMG CBE AFC RAF (Rtd) was appointed as the first commandant of the Observer Corps. "Air Cdre" Masterman held this appointment until his retirement on 1 March 1936, and was succeeded by Air Commodore Alfred Warrington-Morris CG CMG OBE AFC RAF (Rtd), who would lead the Observer Corps through the critical period during the Second World War which saw the RAF emerge bruised but victorious following the Battle of Britain of 1940.
Thomas Glanville Taylor
A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Royal Society (elected 10 February 1842) Taylor helped establish an observatory at Doddabetta in Ootacamund. He was suffering from tuberculosis when he went to visit his ailing daughter in England in 1848. She died in April, and he himself died a month later, in Southampton. He was succeeded at the Madras Observatory by William Stephen Jacob (1813-1862).