Эдмунд Нейсон (Невилл): астроном, химик и исследователь Луны.

Edmund Neison FRS FRAS), whose real name was Edmund Neville Nevill, wrote a key text in selenography called The Moon and the Condition and Configuration of its Surface in 1876 and later set up the Natal Observatory in Durban, Natal Province. He also wrote a popular book on astronomy some years after immigrating to Durban.

He was born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England on 27 August 1849 and educated at Harrow School and New College, Oxford. During the Franco Prussian War he volunteered with French forces and served with Marshal MacMahon.

In 1871, Nevill returned to London and worked as parliamentary reporter to The Standard and also as theatre critic, but his interests included astronomy and chemistry. Nevill has the means to set up a private observatory in Hampstead and became known as amateur with a special interest in the Moon. Nevill was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) under the name Edmund Neison, 'having the curious idea that it was derogatory to the holder of an ancient name to make a career in science'. He reverted to Nevill in 1888 'in accordance with the conditions of a will'. RAS paper in June 1873 argued for the existence of a lunar atmosphere and later paper defined (low) limits for the density of such an atmosphere. In 1876 he produced The Moon and the Condition and Configuration of its Surface described as a translation, extension and updating of Madler. Used many observations and sketches by Webb and other amateurs. The volume 'served its purpose of stimulating interest in selenography'. Nevill was a founder of the Selenographical Society with William Radcliffe Birt, and from 1878 published in Selenographical Journal. This book is still prized by amateur selenographers and is quoted extensively by Wilkins and Moore. Nevill also became a Member of the Chemical Society having agitated in early 1870s for a Chemical Institute. At meeting of Chemical Society on 26 April 1876 committee formed and Neison was one of the Fellows of the Institute of Chemistry, serving on the council from 1877 to 1900. Later he acted as a Government Chemist in Natal.

The context of Nevill's lunar work was given by the increasing recognition of the inaccuracy of Hansen's Tables. Simon Newcomb found fluctuations both irregular and long period, and researched early observations of Moon. In 1878 Newcomb reviewed all observations and found that Hansen's fit back to 1750 worked because all earlier results were ignored. Finding if terms had been omitted from Hansen's theory was a major research issue at the time. Neison/Nevill, in a paper published in the RAS March 1877, confirmed a Jupiter term discovered by Simon Newcomb in 1876 – Neison's coefficient is accurate but an associated long period term coefficient is off by factor of 10. In 1877 Nevill produces a memoir developing analytical theory with an eye to less labour involved in producing tables. Memoir 'showed Nevill to possess considerable powers of Mathematical manipulation'. Later: Ernest W. Brown derived a new theory from first principles – much of Neison's later work in Durban observing Moon positions and comparing with theory is left high and dry and not published due to financial constraints.

He was a keen lawn tennis player and much interested in Babylonian history 'which occupied him after his retirement'. Nevill never attended meetings of the Royal Society, to which he had been admitted in 1908, and was known personally to very few of the Fellows. Nevill was averse to photography and no known photograph exists. The lunar crater Neison is named after him. In 1940 he died and his three children and Mrs Nevill survived him.