Asteroid named after Victorian astronomer who was the first woman at the University of Cambridge paid to observe the heavens
An asteroid has been named in honour of a Victorian astronomer after research revealed she was the first woman at the University of Cambridge - and the second on Britain - to be paid to observe the heavens.
Annie Walker spent 25 years as a ‘computer’ at Cambridge Observatory, where she assisted male colleagues – who at the time had exclusive use of telescopes – with complex calculations based on their observations of the position of stars and planets.
New research has uncovered the significance of her role, with records showing that she rapidly progressed to observing stars herself, later observing all 1,585 stars in a major appendix published in her name 16 years after she resigned.
She was Cambridge’s first, and Britain’s second – after Caroline Herschel – female professional observing astronomer.
While her original colleagues and mentors Prof John Couch Adams and first assistant Andrew Graham noted her regular observing in annual reports in the late 1800s, their successor, Prof Robert Ball, chose not to.
But now researchers Mark Hurn, information manager of the library at Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, and Roger Hutchins, of Magdalen College, Oxford, have uncovered her career using historical records, including Cambridge’s astronomical reports and publications.
Mark, whose research with co-author Roger has been published in The Antiquarian Astronomer, said: “There’s something of a tragedy to this, really – in that she almost certainly never saw her work formally recognised. And that’s really been part of our motivation, to redress things and see her given the sort of recognition she deserves. We felt that we wanted to really do her justice and try and find out everything we could about her story.”
Among her biggest achievements at Cambridge was her Appendix of the Enlarged Edition of the Cambridge Zone Catalogue, which was part of the first great international effort in mapping the heavens,.
Entitled ‘Revision Observations Made by Miss Walker in the Years 1896 to 1899’, the appendix amounts to 10 per cent of the whole catalogue and was the closest she came to a publication in her own name.
She made about 4,800 observations for the catalogue, with each star normally being observed three times. That, along with her separate observations for the Ecliptic Catalogue has “at last clarified Annie’s career in astronomy and the extent of her observing between 1882 and 1903,” the researchers say.
Records show that in 1895 Annie’s salary was £90 a year with free board. This made her the highest paid woman in British astronomy at that time.
But with Robert Ball, Annie was effectively frozen out at the observatory with no hope of promotion beyond her official computer status. In 1903, aged 40, Annie resigned and she emigrated to Australia. Ball’s successor, Arthur Eddington, scrupulously credited her in 1919, some 16 years after she left the Observatory. T
“The really sad thing is that we haven’t been able to find a photograph of her,” said Mark. “But we have looked as closely as possible at all of the records we have, even down to the little remarks she made as part of her observations, about the weather conditions, such as ‘night unsatisfactory’, ‘sky thick’, and ‘bad night’. And, in particular, Roger and I were incredibly struck that she described herself as an astronomer when she arrived in Australia. She must have felt very proud of what she had done at Cambridge.”
Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy has secured International Astronomical Union naming for her of an asteroid in the outer main belt Themis group, now called ‘(5400) Anniewalker = 1989 CM’.
“It’s wonderful news,” said Mark. “And it’s a really good asteroid as well! One with a very low number, which means it was one of the first discovered. It feels like a very fitting, real-world, tribute to Annie – a tangible way to celebrate her. And, of course, we also hope her story will inspire the new generation of women astronomers.”
