Description
Personal and professional correspondence, manuscripts, research notes including astronomical observations and geological measurements,
articles, lectures, personal diaries, family genealogy, and a collection of family photographs including glass plate negatives
and a glass plate negative format camera.
Background
Astronomer. Studied at Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, California, and at the Universities of Berlin and Munich. Before
becoming a Professor of Applied Mathematics at Stanford Unviersiy in 1907, Townley taught at U.C. Berkeley and was Astronomer
at the International Latitude Observatory in Ukiah, California. He became Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Geodesy at Stanford
in 1932. In addition to practical astronomy, his research interests included asteroids, comets and variable stars, latitude
measurements, and seismology.