William Tobin (astronomer)

Tobin stood as a candidate in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency against Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. Although he was a British citizen he had not been resident in Britain for more than 15 years making him ineligible to vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum or the general election. Electoral law allowed him to stand as a candidate. He considered that the British electoral system was unfair and used his election platform to highlight the system which disenfranchised expatriate Britons, particularly those living in Europe in the Brexit referendum, foreigners living in the United Kingdom and 16– and 17–year olds. He also promoted electoral reform, particularly proportional representation having observed the change in New Zealand from a First–past–the–post system to Mixed–member proportional representation. Tobin's campaign slogan was "Don't vote Tobin, let Tobin vote". Although he urged voters not to vote for him he received five votes, which was the lowest number of votes for any candidate in the election. He detailed his reasons for standing and his campaign in his book I'm standing!: the story of my candidacy, with advice for future candidates.

Tobin retired to France but continued to work on astronomy projects. He returned to New Zealand in 2008 to take up a visiting Erskine Fellowship at Canterbury, in 2012 to attend the Starlight Conference in Tekapo and the 50th anniversary of the Mt John University Observatory in 2015.

In 1987 Tobin became a lecturer in astronomy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. He held that position for 19 years until his retirement in 2006. During that time he was also the director of the Mt John University Observatory where he studied the star beta Pictorus. Other areas of research were spectra and photometry of blue stars and eclipsing binary stars in the Magellanic Clouds.

From 1979 to 1982 Tobin held a postdoctoral lectureship at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and from 1982 to 1987 a position at the Marseille Astrophysics Laboratory.

William John Tobin (28 July 1953 – 6 July 2022) was a British–New Zealand astronomer and academic. In the 2019 United Kingdom general election he stood as an independent candidate against Boris Johnson in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency, gaining five votes. As a non–resident he was ineligible to vote but eligible to stand as a candidate. He focussed his campaign on voting rights using the slogan "Don't vote for Tobin, let Tobin vote".

The history of astronomy was another field of Tobin's research. He studied the past Transit of Venus expeditions and wrote a biography of the French physicist Léon Foucault. Tobin's research on telescopes made by James Short found that Otago Museum's telescope was made in 1736 making it the oldest telescope in New Zealand.