Unsung observatory worker was UK’s first professional female astronomer, experts say | Astronomy

For more than a century, astronomers assumed that it had simply “calculated” complex calculations for victorious men who had an exclusive use of telescopes from the Cambridge Observatory.

But the researchers now say that Annie Walker – a Victorian woman who started working at the observatory in 1879, when she was only 15 years old – in fact observed thousands of stars herself.

Previously neglected evidence indicates that Walker was the first British professional astronomer to pay a decent salary by an observatory in the United Kingdom to trace the stars.

But unlike the famous German astronomer Caroline Herschel, who obtained a salary by King George III to help her brother William in his work as a courtyard of the court a century earlier, Walker’s work as a pioneer astronomer was overlooked.

The Astronomy Institute of the University of Cambridge, which houses its library in the former building of the Cambridge Observatory, seeks to get things.

In April, the Institute succeeded in obtaining an asteroid – the Anviewalker – named after its former employee and now the organization launches a campaign to find a photograph of Walker to hang on to the Institute and be used in articles to reaffirm its legitimate place in the history of science.

“She was a real pioneer for women in astronomy – she would have literally recorded the position of thousands of stars,” said the spokesman for the Institute, Mark Hurn, who has been looking for a Walker photograph in local archives for “20 years”.

He called on guard readers in the United Kingdom and Australia, where Walker died in 1940, to get help. “It would make a huge difference for his inheritance to have his photo.”

The daughter of a owner of a mill, Walker was recruited in his Cambridge boarding school to carry out routine calculations for observatory astronomers. “It was quite common in the 19th century – it was not so unusual for women to do this work. What is unusual is that, in the case of Annie, she formed to use the telescopes.

Hurn speculates that it happened because the sight of the boss of Walker, astronomer Andrew Graham, refused during the 21 years when she worked there. “To observe the stars, she sat down at the eyepiece throughout the night, waiting for them to cross the field of the view of the telescope, then she would record the elevation of the telescope and the exact time that the star passed.”

These figures would allow it to calculate an exact position for each star, as part of an international project to trace the galaxy.

When Graham retired at the age of 88 in 1903, “she expected to get her job, but instead, a younger man – than Annie trained on the telescopes herself – was appointed in the role”.

This was probably due to a change in the direction of the observatory, said Hurn. “John Couch Adams, who was in favor of the education of women, was replaced by Sir Robert Ball, a curator who did not really approve of women working, especially in astronomy. Walker’s career has been unleashed by his prejudices. ”

She resigned in 1903 and emigrated to Nyora in Melbourne, Australia, to be with her brother Frank Walker, a butcher. “I think she felt that she did not have much future in Cambridge.”

Her living descendants could not provide a photo of her. “They did not know Annie and her work in astronomy, which is really sad,” said Hurn.

In collaboration with an independent historian, Roger Hutchins, the Institute discovered that Walker continued to describe itself as astronomer on the Australian electoral role in 1909, “but we contacted all observatories there and we are almost sure that it has never worked in an observatory in Australia. We may think she was helping with her brother’s business, “said Hurn.

The evidence discovered by Hutchins revealed that two Walker’s work catalogs observing the stars were finally published in the 1920s and the “full credit” which was given to him by the director of the Cambridge Observatory, Sir Arthur Eddington.

But Hurn thinks that Walker probably never knew that his contributions to astronomy had been recognized during his lifetime and that his pioneer status was neglected by the previous commissioners of the history of the observatory. “She was the first professional woman to earn a living in astronomy,” said Hurn. “But if you were asking most astronomers today, they would not know his name.”