George Ellery Hale was an early and important pioneer of Solar Research.  In the early 19th Century, in Pasadena,  coincidently, the present  location of NASA`s   JPL  ( Jet Propulsion Laboratory )  Hale  constructed,    one of the most advanced Solar Telescopes of the time,  on the San Gabriel  Mountains.    Hale equipped it with the latest spectrographic  detectors and equipment,  and proceeded to  isolate the spectrographic signatures of the element  present in the Solar spectrum.
    Hale, a renowned Solar photographer,  was able to  image   sunspots in  minute detail  ,   and in June 1908   he made an important discovery.  That discovery was, that magenticc  fields  were  present in the vicinity of Sunspots.
Hale then made one of the most   fundamental errors  that has ever been  made  in the annals  of  Solar Astrophysics , and everyone  including the peers of the day  bought  Hales  hypothesis.  That  error was to  lead to the development of   numerous  flawed Solar Models, and  thereby  inhibited   the development of  Solar,   Stellar   and Galactic astrophysics for the rest of the  19th century, the 20th Century  and beyond.
  The knock on effect  was to denyAstrophysicists  an important tool ,  to  resolve problems , and anomalies of planetary system formation, Galactic type formation, and local and large  scale Galactic structure.  For  a Century and several,decades,   the resolution of anomalous  findings  was obscured by this mistake.
    The mistake was to assume that the prescence of magnetic fields in the vicinity of Sunspots,  was the cause of Sunspots.     When the inverse is true.    Sunspots are the cause of magnetic fields.
   In 1908  the mechanics of atomic structure, fission  and fusion were  not available to assist Hale and  the   Astrophysicists of the day,  in the  interpretation  of the   entirely new   Solar phenomena. 
In the pre fusion fission era, we cannot therefore   penalise  Hale or  his peers,   and their acceptance  at what  appeared  to them to be   " the definitive solution"  available at that time.  That Solar Astrophysicists missed the boat , in the light of  a Century of  Astrophysics, is  a mystery to me.    Kevin Wilson