"[I]nvestigation of non-static solutions was carried out by A. Friedmann in 1922. His solutions were rediscovered in 1927 by Abbé G. Lemaître, who brilliantly developed the astronomical theory... and... remained unknown until 1930... In the meantime the solutions had been discovered... by H. P. Robertson, and through him... interest was... realised. The astronomical application, stimulated by Hubble and Humason’s observational work on the spiral nebule, was also being rediscovered, but it had not been carried so far as in Lemaître’s paper."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe