The Conclusion chapter reiterates the book’s approach, focus and main points. It reminds the reader that the book has concentrated on local, provincial, peripatetic and otherwise relatively marginal sites of scientific activity and shown how a wide variety of spaces were constituted and reconfigured as meteorological observatories. The conclusion reiterates the point that nineteenth-century meteorological observatories, and indeed the very idea of observatory meteorology, were under constant scrutiny. The conclusion interrogates four crucial conditions of these observatory experiments: the significance of geographical particularity in justifications of observatory operations; the sustainability of coordinated observatory networks at a distance; the ability to manage, manipulate and interpret large datasets; and the potential public value of meteorology as it was prosecuted in observatory settings. Finally, the chapter considers the use of historic weather data in recent attempts by climate scientists to reconstruct past climates and extreme weather events.

Chapter 1 considers relations between science and the maritime world by examining the British Admiralty’s participation in meteorological projects in the nineteenth century, focusing on the period between the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars and the Conference on Maritime Meteorology in 1874. It examines the roles played by individuals and institutions, guidebooks and regulations, in promoting a culture of instrumental meteorology onboard voyages of exploration, and on Royal Naval and Hydrographic Office survey ships. The work of Admiralty Hydrographer Francis Beaufort and Army engineer William Reid are discussed. Particular attention is paid to attempts to establish national and international standards for the study of meteorology at sea. The chapter discusses the consent given by the British Admiralty to allow its ships to be turned into floating meteorological observatories.

Chapter 4 examines efforts in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to better understand Britain’s rain. Meteorologists had attempted to investigate the distribution of rain prior to the 1850s, but observation points remained few and inadequately distributed. The solution to answering questions about the geographies of the rain was the establishment of a rainfall observatory network that covered the entirety of the British Isles. The network of rainfall observing stations was established by George Symons and became known as the British Rainfall Organisation. It relied almost exclusively on volunteer labour. The first section of the chapter details the early years of Symons’s Rainfall Organisation and its key administrative features, before moving on to discussions about rain gauges and station exposures. The chapter then examines a series of experimental trials that ran from 1863 to 1890 and discusses the ensuing controversy regarding the value of the experiments and of the observatory network more generally. The chapter then looks at contemporary discussions about the value of various statistical treatments of rain data, before finishing with Alexander Buchan’s and Hugh Robert Mill’s rainfall maps and the maps’ contributions to data management and public utility.

The Introduction chapter reviews recent literature on the history of nineteenth-century meteorology, particularly as it relates to weather observation. It sets out the book’s argument that projects to establish meteorological observatories should be treated as observatory experiments. The chapter explains that the book presents four historical geographies of meteorological observatories: ships at sea, colonial buildings, huts on mountain tops and suburban back gardens. The remainder of the chapter considers the following questions in relation to debates in the relevant literature and in the context of the nineteenth century: What counted as a meteorological observatory? What was the right way to observe the weather? How were observatory networks configured? How were weather data managed? And what were the ends of observatory meteorology?

Chapter 2 examines attempts to develop a new model observatory in which the physical sciences could be investigated. Although often positioned as the poor cousin to the pursuit of terrestrial magnetism, the study of meteorology was a critical component of activities at physical observatories at home and overseas and was required to conform to the same exacting requirements. The chapter focuses on Britain’s magnetic crusade and the establishment of a series of so-called colonial observatories across the British Empire. It then investigates the history of one physical observatory – the Colaba Observatory in Bombay, India. The chapter considers Colaba’s place within a set of imperial and climatic geographies that extended across the Indian subcontinent.

Chapter 3 focuses on the history of Britain’s only mountaintop weather station, on Ben Nevis in Scotland. It was the idea of the Scottish Meteorological Society. Clement Wragge offered to test the location by taking observations daily on the summit. In doing so Wragge conducted and represented himself like an Alpine mountaineer or Arctic adventurer. The chapter then traces the establishment of an observatory on the summit, and its brethren observatory at Fort William. The chapter focuses on what life was like for the observers working on the summit. It also discusses the observatory’s financial insecurity and its conflicts with the Meteorological Council in London. The Council’s refusal to increase the observatory’s annual government grant was blamed for its closure in 1904, while the observatory’s critics blamed its failure to contribute to forecasting.