1.1. Colonial observatories join an international network

The first international Astrographic Congress was held in 1887 at Paris Observatory. It was at the recommendation of British astronomers, William Huggins and David Gill, who wrote to the director of Paris Observatory, that Sydney and Melbourne Observatory were invited to participate from the onset (Huggins Reference Huggins1886). Sydney Observatory was allocated zone −52° to −64° and Melbourne Observatory −65° to the south celestial pole. Adelaide Observatory undertook to provide a catalogue of positional stars for the Melbourne Zone. William Cooke, director of Perth Observatory, actively sought to participate in this prestigious project (Baracchi Reference Baracchi1898c) and in 1900 the Western Australian government officially accepted the zone −32° to −40°. The correspondence between the colonial state astronomers and astronomers around the globe shows that one of the many attractive aspects of this program was the engagement in the growing international astronomical networks this project offered.

At a following congress held in 1892 it was decided that, rather than establish a central bureau in Paris to measure the stars on the glass plate negatives and reduce the co-ordinates of the zones to a single epoch, each observatory would make its own arrangements for measurement and preparation for publication (Gill Reference Gill1892). This decision was pivotal in changing the nature of observatories around the world. Standard measurement techniques were established for the AC, and one of these standards was to recommend the establishment of bureaux of women to measure and catalogue each star (Bigg Reference Bigg, Hentschel and Wittmann2000).

1.2. The richest section of the sky

Altogether the area of sky the Australian observatories were allocated accounted for 18% of the entire project (White Reference White and Debarbat1987), with the richest section of sky to contend with and the largest number of stars to be measured and reduced (Wood Reference Wood1971). Table 1 shows that the Sydney Zone had the largest number of plates and stars and the resources applied to the extensive program undertaken by these observatories. The photography was a challenge, however the time taken to measure and compute the data has been described as ‘the real brake on the project’ (Lomb & Pickett Reference Lomb and Pickett2001).

Table 1.

Stars measured and resources applied to the Australian zones of the Astrographic Catalogue (Cooke 1912, Curlewis 1914, Greaves Reference Greaves1949, Wood Reference Wood1971).

*Cumulative total year estimates.

**Estimate due to unknown impacts such as delivery delays on the Perth Observatory plates due to WWI.

1.3. The historiography of the AC in Australia

Since the completion of the AC in 1961 its historiography has focussed on the longevity of the project and its impact on resources available for other astronomy research in Australia in the early twentieth century (Haynes et al Reference Haynes, Haynes, Malin and McGee1996, Hearnshaw Reference Hearnshaw1996, Orchiston Reference Orchiston1988, White Reference White and Debarbat1987). The reliability of the AC results have been questioned (Hearnshaw Reference Hearnshaw1996) and analysed in terms of the value of the project for ‘determining proper motions when combined with modern observations’ (Urban, Corbin & Wycoff Reference Urban, Corbin and Wycoff1988). Analysis of the accuracy of the Sydney Zone concluded that the emulsion on the glass plates was the cause of greater error than the measurement techniques (Wood Reference Wood1960).

This paper does not attempt to analyse these aspects of the historiography of the AC but to focus on the women who were variously called ‘astrographic assistant’, ‘star measurer’, ‘clerk’, ‘junior computer’ and ‘astrographic computer’. My research has uncovered that in the logbooks the majority of women did star measurement, magnitude determination, computation and made notes about irregularities, including double stars. Some women also managed the bureau, checked errors, calibrated instruments and prepared the documents for printing.

Records of the AC measurement work are embodied in the volumes of the Sydney (Cooke Reference Cooke1923 to 1925, Nangle Reference Nangle1929 to Reference Nangle1941, Wood Reference Wood1945 to 1971), Melbourne (Baldwin Reference Baldwin1926 to 1929, Wood Reference Wood1945 to 1964) and Perth Astrographic Catalogues (Cooke Reference Cooke1911 to 1912, Curlewis Reference Curlewis1913 to 1921) and the three volumes of the Perth Zones measured at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh (Greaves Reference Greaves1949, Wrigley Reference Wrigley1952). There are summary reports for each observatory outlining how the project came about, the techniques used and most of the people involved (Cooke 1912, Baldwin Reference Baldwin1926, Wrigley Reference Wrigley1952, Wood Reference Wood1971). Tables list the women's initials next to the plates that they measured in most of the catalogues.

The Double Star research and magnitude comparative studies that emerged from the AC did not acknowledge the women whose observations, as they measured, detected and noted the double stars (for example Wrigley Reference Wrigley1911, Pocock Reference Pocock1915, Barton Reference Barton1937a, Reference Barton1937b). I have located only three scientific papers where the work of an individual female astrographic worker in Australia is acknowledged (Baldwin Reference Baldwin1917, 1918; Wood Reference Wood1971). James Baldwin, then Director of Melbourne Observatory, acknowledged Charlotte Peel's measurement of the position and magnitudes of two comets. Harley Wood, New South Wales Government Astronomer, published the final explanatory volume of the Sydney Zone in 1971 and named the women who worked on the Melbourne and Sydney Zones. Wood acknowledged the contribution made by Winsome Bellamy and Margaret Colville in completing the AC (Wood Reference Wood1971).

Minimal information about the women is to be found in more recent publications (Barker Reference Barker2009; Lomb & Pickett Reference Lomb and Pickett2001; Russell Reference Russell2008; Stevenson Reference Stevenson2012) and, in reference to Wood (Reference Wood1971), Bhathal highlighted C. Peely (sic) and W. Bellamy for their length of service (Bhathal Reference Bhathal2001) but not for their contribution to astronomy. Sydney Observatory and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, developed minor exhibits about the AC inclusive of the computers and measurers.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the news and popular media in Australia showed intermittent interest in the AC. Unlike the male astronomers and technicians who are named, the women are most often referred to as the ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’ (for example Brisbane Courier Reference Courier1902, The Argus 1908). There is one exception in which the Women's Supplement of The Sydney Morning Herald (1938) named astrographic computers at Sydney Observatory, Muriel Mills and Beth Macara.

2.1. Star measurers and computers in Britain, France and North America

According to Oxford College Observatory Director, Herbert Hall Turner, the normative structure of the AC observatories was established for economic reasons with women employed for the greatest quantity of the work because they were a proven and reliable cheap source of labour (Turner Reference Turner1912). Science historian Mary T. Brück called the female computers working at the Royal Observatories in Greenwich and Edinburgh ‘Slave Wage Earners’ (2009).

The Astronomer Royal, William Christie, employed four female Cambridge mathematics scholars, including Alice Everett, in 1890–91 for the Royal Observatory Greenwich (ROG) zone of the AC in temporary positions at a salary of £30 per annum (Brück Reference Brück2009). Everett undertook a program of photographing the stars by night and plate measurement by day. In 1896 Everett joined the AC project at Potsdam Observatory as the first woman to be employed in astronomy in Germany. In 1898 Everett was employed for a year at Vassar College, in New York State, however, despite applications made for positions in observatories back in Britain, she was not successful in establishing a further career in astronomy because, according to Brück, she was female (Reference Brück2009).

Dorothea Klumpke was employed by Paris Observatory to establish and head its ‘Bureau des Mesures’. Klumpke wrote one of the first descriptions of a measuring bureau and acknowledged the work of her staff, Mme Schott and Mlle Marquette (Klumpke Reference Klumpke1895). Klumpke presented a paper about women's work in astronomy to the International Congress of Women in London which described the tedious work of producing astronomical almanacs as ‘astronomical labour’ (Klumpke Reference Klumpke1899). According to Klumpke this work was ‘truly scientific’ in its nature and women have:

Klumpke's analysis that astronomy was now ‘a science of gender equality’ reflected only the small number of women who were encouraged and paid to pursue new research. In North America at Vassar College and Harvard College Observatory women progressed to senior positions, made new discoveries and published independent research (Klumpke Reference Klumpke1899, Larsen Reference Larsen2009, Mack Reference Mack1990a, Reference Mack, Kass-Simon and Farnes1990b, Rossiter Reference Rossiter1980,1983). Williamina Fleming published several papers on spectral analysis and was acknowledged by Harvard College Observatory Director, Edward Pickering (Fleming Reference Fleming1893, Fleming & Pickering Reference Fleming and Pickering1896) and Caroline Furness published over 90 papers including a catalogue of stars reduced from four photographic plates taken at Vassar College (Furness Reference Furness1905).

At Oxford College Observatory Ethel Bellamy gained astronomy experience from working with her uncle, Frank Arthur Bellamy. Bellamy measured and reduced most of the Oxford AC Zone plates for Turner (Brück Reference Brück2009). After the Oxford zone was complete Bellamy finished and checked the Vatican Observatory AC Zones. Bellamy published her astrographic findings on proper motions (Bellamy Reference Bellamy1919) and was awarded an honourary Masters Degree (Brück Reference Brück2009, Hutchins Reference Hutchins2008).

The exceptional women I have described in this section were well educated or had a family member prominent in astronomy. Extensive research into women in astronomy in the United Kingdom (Brück Reference Brück2009, Kidwell Reference Kidwell and Kohlstedt1999), in North America (Mack Reference Mack1990a, Reference Mack, Kass-Simon and Farnes1990b, Rossiter Reference Rossiter1980, Reference Rossiter1983) and in Paris, the Vatican (Bigg Reference Bigg, Hentschel and Wittmann2000) and Toulouse (Lamy Reference Lamy2006) has revealed that star catalogue measurement was not a pathway to a career in astronomy for the majority of women. Most women measurers and computers were employed on fixed salaries at low rates in observatories around the globe and rarely recognised within publications or otherwise formally acknowledged for their objective and scientific contributions to astronomy (Rossiter Reference Rossiter1980, Brück Reference Brück2009).

2.2. Star measurers and computers in Australia

The women employed in Australia for the AC were significant in number and their employment spanned a period from 1890 to 1961 as illustrated in Table 1.

In 1890 Charles Todd, Government Astronomer for South Australia, employed a ‘female computer’, Mary Emma Greayer, and a second computer, Miss Pittman, in 1892 (Adelaide Observatory 1893). In 1898 Pietro Baracchi, the Government Astronomer for Victoria, established a star measuring bureau of six women at Melbourne Observatory. As agreed between Baracchi and Russell, Misses Peel, Phillips, Skoglund, Lewis, Harker and Hall would undertake measuring and reducing the Sydney and Melbourne Zones (Baracchi Reference Baracchi1898a). In 1907 at Perth Observatory Cooke established a bureau of two ‘star measurers’, Prudence Williams and Minnie Harvey (Cooke Reference Cooke1908), and by 1909 there were seven women computing the reductions as well as measuring (Commissioner's Office, 1910). Cooke became the NSW Government Astronomer in 1912 and by 1916 established a measuring bureau at Sydney Observatory with Miss Digby and Miss McDonald working on the Sydney Zone.

A few women, such as Mary Emma Greayer (Adelaide Observatory employee 1890 to 1898), Charlotte Peel (Melbourne Observatory employee 1898 to 1918), Prudence Valentine Williams (Perth Observatory employee 1907 to 1918) and Winsome Bellamy (Sydney Observatory employee 1948 to 1968) worked for many years at the respective observatories. Exposing the barriers women, such as Greayer, Peel, Williams and Bellamy, faced in their employment has been identified as essential to making women's work and its value to the whole more visible (Nugent Reference Nugent2002). As discussed in the next section the employment conditions for women were implicit in restricting the acknowledgement and advancement of women in astronomy.

2.3. Conditions of employment for astrographic assistants

An Australian Heritage Office report on women's employment and professionalism (Nugent Reference Nugent2002) revealed that at the end of the nineteenth century women had access to education and some university courses. It was these middle class, educated women, who entered public life because opportunities for women to gain employment other than in domestic duty, in factories or as barmaids, were limited (Nugent Reference Nugent2002). The colonial governments offered public service examinations for women in non-clerical positions, primarily as ‘Female Telephone Operators’, in post offices, as electoral registrar assistants and in teaching. It was from these lists that most of the women were drawn to work in the observatories.

Throughout much of the 1890s rural areas across Australia were in prolonged drought (Todd Reference Todd1897a). This caused a severe financial depression which directly impacted on resources for astronomy (Ellery Reference Ellery1892) and it was accepted, though not initially legislated, that women would be paid less than men (Nugent Reference Nugent2002). In Australia a marriage bar was introduced via the Commonwealth Government Act in 1902 and from 1907 it was legislated that women were to be paid 54% of a male salary (Higgins Reference Higgins1907). There was a clear distinction between men's work and women's work and acknowledgement for women whose work may have been considered ‘men's work’ was likely kept hidden due to the impact it could have had on their salary conditions (Kramar Reference Kramar1990). The marriage bar was not completely lifted until 1966 and in 1972 equal pay was legislated (Kramar Reference Kramar1990, Nugent Reference Nugent2002).

The Melbourne Observatory computers were tested for mathematical ability, and as decided between Baracchi and Russell, their wages were drawn from funds totalling £300, paid equally by Sydney and Melbourne Observatories (Baracchi Reference Baracchi1898a, Reference Baracchi1898b). The women's wages of £40 per annum were comparative with ‘female pupil teachers’ (trainee teachers), who in Victoria earned between £24 and £60 per annum (Victoria Gazette 1896). Four years later their salary remained unchanged and, as remarked in a popular news paper about the ‘Women's work at the Melbourne Observatory’, was comparatively low:

At Perth Observatory the base salary of £40 continued until 1913 when Prudence Williams, Minnie Harvey, Ethel Allen and Ida Tothill, measurers and computers, complained about the rate of pay and that the work was ‘hard on the eyes’ to Harold Burnham Curlewis, Government Astronomer Western Australia (Williams et al Reference Williams, Harvey, Tothill and Allen1913). Curlewis wrote to the Under Secretary rejecting a recent order to restrict the women's employment to a maximum of three years and questioned why the women's rate of pay had not been increased as recommended:

Williams argued that the work required training and skill (Williams Reference Williams1914). Curlewis appreciated this and requested that the regulation of a maximum 4 years employment be changed (Curlewis Reference Curlewis1913). Through her written submissions and representation Williams influenced the salaries offered and also the conditions under which the women at Perth Observatory worked.

2.4. Measurement techniques and error checking

The summary reports (Cooke 1912, Baldwin Reference Baldwin1926, Wood Reference Wood1971), standard format of the logbooks and more recent interviews with two computers who worked at Sydney Observatory confirm that the methods used to measure the glass plates in Australia were identical to those used for the Oxford University Observatory zone (Turner Reference Turner1912).

According to Sydney Observatory Astrographic computers, Winsome Bellamy and Verlie Lee (nee Maurice), each plate was assigned to two women to measure, one in the positive, the other in the reverse. Every thirty minutes, or so, the women would swap positions, one measuring, the other notating. In general the measurement was done in the morning and the computational work in the afternoon, and the measurement machine was located near a window facing south for even light (W. Bellamy Reference Bellamy2009; V. Lee Reference Lee2011, private communication).

The logbooks in the Perth Observatory archives show that the pace and accuracy of measurement was constantly checked and compared. For example, on plate 3365 it took Williams 4.5 hours to measure 161 stars in positive and reverse, whereas on plate 3366 Allen took 4 hours to measure 154 stars in positive and reverse. Nossiter complained in length about the women's accuracy and the slow speed of work (Williams Reference Williams1914). Williams, on behalf of the other women, argued that they were also doing much of the computational work assigned to Nossiter, and although they did not mind doing the work, they wanted to be paid for it (Williams Reference Williams1914).

The women were kept strictly segregated from the male astronomers, not so much to protect them and to avoid scandal, but to stop the loss of productivity that would supposedly follow from distraction of the male staff (B. Clark Reference Clark2012, private communication). At Sydney Observatory the measurement bureau was located on the top floor of a now demolished northern wing of the observatory buildingFootnote ² , and at Melbourne Observatory they were in a south-facing wing, now called the ‘Ellery Room’. This physical isolation was typical for measurement bureaux globally.

One of the major impediments to women pursuing more research-based work in observatories in North America and in Britain was the exclusivity of the main instruments in observatories to males (Larsen Reference Larsen2009, Brück Reference Brück2009). There was further social discouragement for women to work at night as the observatories were, by their nature, in isolated and poorly lit locations but according to social scientists, in Europe (Brück Reference Brück2009) and in North America (Rossiter Reference Rossiter1980,1983; Mack Reference Mack1990a, Reference Mack, Kass-Simon and Farnes1990b; Larsen Reference Larsen2009), some women did ‘breach the divide’ (Larsen Reference Larsen2009). I will now examine two outstanding individuals, Greayer and Peel, and how their work ‘breached the divide’ in Australia.

3.1. Mary Emma Greayer (b.1861 to d.1910)

Mary Emma Greayer worked at Adelaide Observatory from 1890 to 1898. She was employed as a temporary assistant at Gepps Cross and then Angaston public school in 1886 (South Australian Register 1886). In 1887 her sister, Jessie Greayer, married William Ernest Cooke, assistant government astronomer. The photograph in Figure 1 shows Mary Emma Greayer with Charles Todd, Government Astronomer South Australia, and Cooke.

Figure 1.

Adelaide Observatory staff c1895 (left to right) Charles Todd, William Ernest Cooke and Mary Emma Greayer. Collection and copyright permission Perth Observatory, donated B. Minchin.

Because Greayer was not a permanent staff member her name does not appear in the Public Service Gazette or in official staff records in which only permanent staff are listed. It is through the Time Book, as shown in Figure 2, that evidence of Greayer's regular night work from December 1890 is found and the 1897 Adelaide Observatory MNRAS report (Todd Reference Todd1897b). Furthermore the initials ‘M.E.G.’ in the handwritten logbooks of observations and reductions recorded the extent of Greayer's work, which included observing through and calibrating telescopes.

Figure 2.

‘Time Book’ Adelaide Observatory 1890–1898. Greayer's night work on 25 February and 2 March 1892 is circled. State Records South Australia GRG 31/19. Photographed with permission, T. Stevenson.

Greayer regularly worked in partnership with Cooke on three or more nights per week from 1891 and when Cooke resigned in 1896 Richard Fletcher Griffiths became her observing partner. The 1893 observing logbook lists Greayer as the main observer of Individual Zenith Stars (Adelaide Observatory 1893). She took micrometer readings and reduced the nadirs. The diary notes indicate that she adjusted the 6-inch Troughton and Sims Transit Circle telescope pictured in Figure 3 and calibrated other instruments. This work is in six volumes and each volume holds details of an estimated 990 stars. Greayer observed and reduced many hundreds of clock stars also with the transit instrument.

Figure 3.

Transit telescope used by Greayer at Adelaide Observatory, pictured with Richard Griffiths. State Library of South Australia B22764/1.

At night Greayer observed over one third of the positional stars for the Melbourne AC zone between 1894 and 1898 using the 8-inch equatorial telescope shown in Figure 4 (Adelaide Observatory 1898). During the day, between 1895 and 1897, Greayer reduced the Melbourne Astrographic Zone stars (−65° to the South Pole) from apparent to mean RA and NPD (Adelaide Observatory 1897). Cooke and Greayer observed the Stars from the General Argentine Catalogue to compare magnitude observations (Adelaide Observatory, 1892).

Figure 4.

Thomas Cooke and Sons Equatorial telescope used by Greayer at Adelaide Observatory. Collection and copyright permission Museums Victoria, MM068176.

Greayer's interest in astronomy and curiosity about new developments led her to be one of the first three women to join the Astronomical Society of South Australia (ASSA) in 1893. Her acceptance into the society with Lorna and Alice Maud Todd was reported in the newspaper (The Advertiser 1894), as the ASSA was one of the first astronomical societies to enrol women as members without prejudice. In 1895 South Australia was the first state in Australia to grant women suffrage.

Greayer's significant contribution to the astronomical work was highlighted at the time of her resignation in 1899 from the correspondence between Todd and Baracchi:

Todd also wrote to NSW Government astronomer, H.C. Russell, about Greayer, praising her as ‘a veritable Caroline Herschel’ bemoaning that, after Greayer's departure, the work of measuring standard stars for the AC ‘stalled’ for a number of years (Todd Reference Todd1899b). Greayer married Griffiths in 1898 and they had four children. Greayer died on 3 September 1910 aged forty-nine in Victoria.

3.2. Charlotte Emily Fforde Peel (b.1876 to d.1974)

Charlotte Emily Fforde Peel had a career at Melbourne Observatory from 1898 to 1918. Peel passed the State Government public service exam for non-clerical positions and switch operators (Victoria Gazette 1896) and was appointed to the Education Department as teacher number 12 698 at Patyah School in rural Victoria (Victoria Gazette 1900a). It is unclear as to how she was temporarily transferred to Melbourne Observatory in 1898 at age twenty-two.

Peel was one of six temporarily employed star measurers for the Melbourne zone of the AC but by 1900 she was appointed to the permanent staff of Melbourne Observatory (Victoria Gazette 1900b). Peel was the first woman to be permanently employed in astronomy in Australia and was elevated in rank to ‘assistant astronomical computer’ as reported to the Board of Visitors (Baracchi Reference Baracchi1901). Peel had a senior position overseeing the work of the bureau in much the same way as Dorothea Klumpke had at Paris Observatory. The logbooks demonstrate that Peel measured stars, reduced the co-ordinates using a logarithmic formulae, managed the errors of the other workers and the measuring machines which she calibrated as needed. Peel was selected to work alongside James Baldwin, the Government Astronomer for Victoria, on comet observations. She measured Comet C/1913 YI (Delavan) and comet C/1915 CI (Mellish) as acknowledged by Baldwin (Reference Baldwin1917).

The photograph in Figure 5 is of Melbourne Observatory staff. According to Clark (Reference Clark2012) this photograph may have been taken for the 84th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1914. Clark has identified the woman on the right as Peel and the woman on the left as meteorologist Miss Moroney.

Figure 5.

Staff at Melbourne Observatory, c.1914. Peel is middle row, far right. Collection and copyright permission Astronomical Society Victoria, courtesy B. Clark & D. Ferguson.

Peel was a permanent staff member and her employment is therefore recorded in the published State Government Gazette. Her logbooks are now in the distributed collection of State Records Office, NSW. At Melbourne Observatory the rooms and some of the furniture used for measuring still exist. In 1918 Peel resigned in order to marry Robert Sangster, the librarian and clerk at Melbourne Observatory (Victoria Gazette 1919). They lived in Caulfield, Melbourne, where Peel died in 1974 at age 98.

Peel represents a large number of women who were chosen for the AC because of their mathematical acuity, accuracy, patience and willingness to do repetitive work precisely (Bigg Reference Bigg, Hentschel and Wittmann2000). The work required adherence to the rules of documentation, as is shown by the archived logbooks, and excellent eyesight. The required pace for measuring the stars, around 40 stars per hour (Baracchi Reference Baracchi1898b), meant that there was little time to reflect, compare or work outside the standard regimen.