John Couch Adams Cornish Christian Astronomer who discovered planet Neptune

This summer we visited the village of Laneast, Cornwall, on Bodmin Moor, where John Couch Adams was born and brought up during his youth.

We found the village down some very narrow, windy lanes, which reminded me very much of where I spend my young life down in West Cornwall, near Redruth.

John’s early life as an Astronomer was spent in this village and surrounding countryside. He would spend hours upon hours gazing up upon the cosmos, in complete wonder and amazement at God’s mighty creation.

His Mother and Father were devout Wesleyans, and through their Christian belief knew that their son had a very special gift from God. For at a very young age, he showed considerable mathematical powers, which astonished the people of the village and his family.

The parish Church has some extraordinary symbols inside of it, no doubt influenced by John Couch Adams himself. A wooden carving in the ceiling , showing the Star of David, is very unusual, as it depicts a Star of David within a Star of David. Also some other stained glass, shows also some astrological signs. Which is also very peculiar indeed, I can show you some of these on my blog.





Cornish Astronomer, John Couch Adams born at Lidcot farmhouse, Laneast, Cornwall, on the 5th of June 1819.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs and to mark seasons and days and years.” (Genesis 1:14)



John Couch Adams born in Cornwall, England in 1819. Came from a farming family. His family were poor tenant farmers on Bodmin Moor at very early age he amazed everyone with his extraordinary abilities to do mathematical calculations in his head without the use of pen and paper.



Some facts.
1 At 16 years of age, John had worked out when an annular eclipse of the Sun would be visible in Lidcot, England.

2 He used only his brain to do the calculations predicting the presence of Neptune.
3 He studied the Leonid meteor shower and correctly concluded that the shower was the result of a comet passing close to Earth once a year.

4 All of the calculations were worked out in his head before he ever wrote them down.
5 His greatest discovery was the planet Neptune.

John was a shy child whose knowledge of astronomy was self taught. In his teens he had constructed his own sundial and spent time studying solar altitudes.

He showed mathematician powers his father was advised to send him to college.