Of Agnes Clerke's London-based friends, Sir David Gill continued to take an active interest in astronomy after he retired. He was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1908 and was the Society's President in 1909–11. He died in 1914; Lady Gill survived him until 1919.

The Tulse Hill observatory ceased to function in 1908, when Sir William Huggins was 85. The instruments reverted to the Royal Society, which had originally supplied them, and were given to the Cambridge University Observatory. The Hugginses in their retirement collected and edited their scientific papers, which were published in a handsome volume, The Collected Scientific Papers of Sir William Huggins, in 1909. Sir William Huggins died in 1910; Lady Huggins died in 1916.

In a reorganisation of British astronomy, Sir Norman Lockyer's solar observatory at South Kensington was transferred to Cambridge University in 1910, greatly to his disappointment. He then set up a private observatory at Sidmouth, Devon, later named the Norman Lockyer Observatory, which opened in 1913 and still flourishes. He died in 1920.

Walter Maunder retired in 1913 after 40 years of service with the Royal Observatory, but resumed his duties after the outbreak of the First World War, when many of the Greenwich staff were absent on military service. His wife Annie also returned to Greenwich from 1915 to 1920, as a volunteer. Both continued to be active in the British Astronomical Association until their deaths. Walter died in 1928, Annie in 1947.