Jack English was born in Platteville and earned his teaching degree from the Platteville Normal School (now UW Platteville) in 1923. He taught in several school districts around southern Wisconsin before taking a position at the Madison Vocational School teaching chemistry. He would stay at the vocational school for 29 years.

In the early 1930s, English was actively sharing his hobby of telescope making with the public and mentoring others in the craft. His friendship with Bill Binney (another founder) led him to be part of the core group that formed MAS. Because of his position at the vocational school (later, MATC), many early MAS meetings took place in classrooms or meeting rooms at their building on S. Carroll St. in downtown Madison.

In 2021, as the MAS history project was in full swing, I got in touch with a couple of Jack’s grandchildren, who live in Michigan and Ohio. They provided many memories and details of their grandfather’s life and love of astronomy, and shared with me the historical photos that appear in this post.

As we were talking about English’s love of astronomy, they said, “Have you been to his house? His telescope is still in the yard.” I gently explained to them that telescopes that were set up in the out-of-doors 70 years ago were surely long gone. But they stood firm, telling me that they had all visited Madison the previous year and drove by Grandpa’s old house. “The telescope is still there!” they insisted.

So they gave me the address and I made the pilgrimage to Monona Drive on Madison’s east side. Jack and Gladys English raised their son in this house.

And his telescope is still there.

Note the highlighted region in the side yard. English’s telescope is not in great shape, and obviously hasn’t been functional in many years, but it’s still standing. (These pictures were taken in the fall of 2021 but I’ve been back as recently as the summer of 2025. I’m happy to report that it’s still there.)

Based on the condition of the tube, mount and pier, it’s been exposed to the elements since it was built in 1930s (see photo below). The tube is empty, there’s no mirror cell, secondary assembly, or focuser. And the equatorial mount is not aligned to north.

The house on Monona Drive is not the English’s—or the telescope’s—first home.

A close examination of this photo reveals that the same telescope, pier, and mount are present, but the location is not the Monona Drive house. From this, we can infer that English constructed the telescope and pier sometime in the 1930s, most likely at his previous home on Oakridge Ave. He subsequently relocated it with him to Monona Drive. Although only the optical tube, elements of the equatorial mount, and pier remain today, it’s evident that this device was meticulously crafted.

Jack English’s telescope is roughly the same age as the MAS, and bears a metaphorical resemblance to it. Their shared origin story lies in English’s co-founding of the Society and his passion for telescope making. Both survived the years (and Madison’s harsh climate) because they were well-designed and carefully made.

I managed to track down the current owner of the Monona Drive property. The people who own the house now are the children and grandchildren of a Mr. Goff, who purchased the property from the English family upon Jack’s death in 1958. The story that came down through the Goff family during their long tenure there is that the original owner of the house was a professor of astronomy at the UW-Madison. I was able to offer a correction to the legend of the telescope and let them know that the real story is even better – that of a humble teacher, amateur astronomer, and telescope maker – and co-founder of the Madison Astronomical Society.

(Posted by John Rummel, September, 2025. Parts of this post are recycled from the biographical sketch written for the MAS History.)

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