Bernard Ephraim Julius Pagel FRS (January 4, 1930 – July 14, 2007) was a British astrophysicist best known for his work on the measurement and interpretation of elemental abundances in stars and galaxies.

The son of physician and medical historian Walter Pagel

Walter Pagel

Walter Traugott Ulrich Pagel was a German pathologist and medical historian. Pagel was born in Berlin as the son of Julius Leopold Pagel. He married Dr. Magda Koll in 1920. They had a son, Bernard, in 1930. Pagel made his doctorate in Berlin in 1922, and became professor in Heidelberg in 1931...

 and grandson of the renowned German physician Julius Pagel

Julius Leopold Pagel

Julius Leopold Pagel was a German physician and historian of medicine.Pagel was educated at the gymnasium at Stolp and at the University of Berlin . In 1876 he established himself as a physician in Berlin, receiving from the university in that city the venia legendi in 1891, and the title of...

, he was born in Berlin in 1930, but moved with his family to Britain in 1933 to avoid the growing Jewish persecution in Germany at that time. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School

Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood

Merchant Taylors' School is a British independent day school for boys, originally located in the City of London. Since 1933 it has been located at Sandy Lodge in the Three Rivers district of Hertfordshire ....

 in Northwood and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge

Sidney Sussex College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.The college was founded in 1596 and named after its foundress, Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex. It was from its inception an avowedly Puritan foundation: some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance...

, from which he graduated with first-class honours in Physics in 1950. He remained
in Cambridge to pursue his doctoral studies, obtaining his PhD in 1955. He was a Research Fellow at Sidney Sussex college from 1953-1956. In 1956, he moved to the
Royal Greenwich Observatory at Herstmonceux

Herstmonceux Castle

Herstmonceux Castle is a brick-built Tudor castle near Herstmonceux, East Sussex, United Kingdom. From 1957 to 1988 its grounds were the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory...

 where he spent the greater part of his career, eventually progressing to the grade of Deputy Chief Scientific Officer. In 1967, he became a Visiting Reader (and later Visiting Professor) in Astronomy at Sussex University. Upon his retirement from the Royal Greenwich
Observatory in 1990, he moved to a Chair at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (NORDITA) in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. He retired for a second time in 1998 and
moved back to Sussex, but remained scientifically active up until his death.

In 1990, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

-History:In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier...

, the Society's highest award, and in 1992 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

There is an "Obituary" for Bernard on the Sussex Astronomy Centre page.