Norman Lockyer, conducting his research from his…

Concluding that the cause of the D3 line is an element in the Sun that is unknown on Earth, he and the noted Scottish chemist Edward Frankland use the Greek word for sun, Helios, in naming the element helium.

This proves to be a misnomer, as the suffix -ium is characteristic of the names of the metals.

Scientists regard the new element as a hypothetical element which might possibly exist on the sun, but which had yet to be found on the earth.

Terrestrial helium will be found about ten years later by William Ramsay.

Norman Lockyer was born in Rugby, Warwickshire.

After a conventional schooling supplemented by travel in Switzerland and France, he had worked for some years as a civil servant in the British War office.

He had settled in Wimbledon, South London after marrying Winifred James.

A keen amateur astronomer with a particular interest in the Sun, Lockyer had eventually become Director of the Solar Physics Observatory in Kensington, London.

In the 1860s, Lockyer had become fascinated by electromagnetic spectroscopy as an analytical tool for determining the composition of heavenly bodies.