View source for Anne Walker (astronomer)

{{short description|British astronomer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2016}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| image              =
| name               = Anne Walker
| birth_name         =
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|1863|10|21|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Wickham Market]], [[Suffolk]], England
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|1940|03|02|1863|10|21|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Glen Huntly]], [[Victoria (state)|Victoria]], Australia
| other_names        =
| occupation         = {{Flatlist|
* [[Astronomer]]
* [[Computer (occupation)|Computer]]
}}
| employer           = [[Cambridge Observatory]]
}}
[[File:CO 16.jpg|thumb|Photograph of Cambridge Observatory Transit Circle, presumably in Thomas Cooke and Son workshop, York, 1870. This is the instrument used by Walker for her documented observations.]]
'''Anne Walker''' (21 October 1863 – 2 March 1940) was a British astronomer and one of the first women employed in paid routine work in astronomy in her country.<ref name="Bruck2009">{{cite book |last=Brück |first=Mary |author-link=Mary Brück |title=Women in Early British and Irish Astronomy |url=https://archive.org/details/womenearlybritis00brck |url-access=limited |year=2009 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-90-481-2472-5 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/womenearlybritis00brck/page/n220 214]}}</ref> She was one of a number of women [[human computer|computers]] employed at [[Cambridge Observatory]] between 1882 and 1903. Unlike most of these women, Walker remained at the observatory for a significant period of time.
Walker was born at [[Wickham Market]], [[Suffolk]] on 21 October 1863.<ref name="ODNB" /> She was employed by the observatory in 1882 at the age of 19, and remained there for 21 years, working under astronomers [[John Couch Adams]] and [[Robert Stawell Ball]]. She worked most directly with the observatory's senior assistant at the time, [[Andrew Graham (astronomer)|Andrew Graham]]. The observatory necessitated that only two observers worked at any one time. Up until 1892, Walker substituted for Graham's current assistant Henry Todd when Todd's ill health prevented him from observing.<ref name="ODNB"/> That Walker was making transit observations with the meridian circle in the mid-1880s is clear from an observatory report that stated her work was interrupted by an [[1884 Colchester earthquake|earth tremor]] on 22 April 1884, when she had to stop while wires in the eyepiece vibrated.<ref name="report_camb_obs_1884_mnras">{{cite journal |title=Cambridge Observatory |journal=[[Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society]] |volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=223–224 |date=1885 |bibcode=1885MNRAS..45..223. }}</ref> From 1892, Walker became Graham's observation partner and from 1894 to 1896, she observed alone.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB |last=Hutchins |first=Roger |title=Andrew Graham |url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57786/57786?back=,57786 |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/57786 |accessdate=25 November 2012}}</ref><ref name="bellamy1912">See page 89 in {{cite journal |last=Bellamy |first=F. A. |author-link=Frank Arthur Bellamy |title=Note on the Cambridge Magnitude Equation |journal=[[Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society]] |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=88–90 |date=1912 |bibcode=1912MNRAS..73...88B |doi=10.1093/mnras/73.2.88 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1431893 |doi-access=free }}</ref>
[[File:CO 3C.jpg|thumb|Photograph of the Cambridge Observatory Transit Circle, taken in April 1896. The astronomer is almost certainly Andrew Graham, Senior Assistant, with whom Walker worked most directly during her career]]
Andrew Graham retired in 1903 at the age of eighty-eight. Anne Walker resigned at the same time as him, bringing her astronomical career at the Cambridge Observatory to an end after 21 years.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="report_camb_obs_1903_mnras">{{cite journal |last=Ball |first=Robert S. |author-link=Robert Stawell Ball |title=Cambridge Observatory |journal=[[Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society]] |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=315–316 |date=1904 |bibcode=1904MNRAS..64..315. }}</ref> She emigrated to join family in Australia and died there on 2 March 1940 in [[Glen Huntly, Victoria]].<ref>4 March 1940, The Age newspaper, published Melbourne, Victoria, Australia </ref><ref name="ODNB" />
It has been suggested<ref name="Bruck2009" /> that Walker was much more than a routine computer, and that she took part in observations with Graham. If true, this makes her the second woman (after [[Caroline Herschel]]) to have been recorded formally engaging in night-time astronomical observations.
==References==
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[[Category:1863 births]]
[[Category:19th-century British astronomers]]
[[Category:20th-century British astronomers]]
[[Category:Human computers]]
[[Category:People from Suffolk Coastal (district)]]
[[Category:British women astronomers]]
[[Category:Year of death missing]]
[[Category:British emigrants to Australia]]