CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/hras Historical Records of Australian Science, 2004, 15, 121–138 Review Section Compiled by Libby Robin Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES), Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia. Email: [email protected] Tom Frame and Don Faulkner: Stromlo: loss of what he described as a ‘national an Australian observatory. Allen & Unwin: icon’. Sydney, 2003. xix + 363 pp., illus., ISBN 1 Institutional histories are often suffused 86508 659 2 (PB), $35. with a sense of inevitability. Looking back from the security of a firmly grounded present, the road seems straight and well marked. The journey that is reconstructed is one where the end point is always known, where uncertainties and diversions are forgotten — a journey that lands neatly on the institution’s front doorstep. Institu- tional histories are often burdened, too, by the expectation that they will not merely tell a story, but provide a record of achieve- ment. Written for the institution’s staff, as well as broader public, they can become bogged down in the details of personnel and projects. In this case, the fires of January 2003 add an unexpected final act Few institutional histories could boast such to what is a fairly traditional story of a dramatic conclusion as Stromlo: an Aus- growth and success. The force of nature tralian observatory. The manuscript was intervenes to remind us of the limits of substantially complete when a savage fire- inevitability, to fashion from the end point storm swept through the pine plantations another beginning. flanking Mount Stromlo, destroying all the The book is roughly divided into halves. major telescopes and many of the observa- The first six chapters recount the Mount tory’s buildings. Among the losses was the Stromlo Observatory’s origins and early Oddie Dome, built in 1911 to test the site history, concluding with its incorporation — one of the first buildings in the nation’s into the Australian National University. yet-to-be-inaugurated capital. This sudden The latter five chapters each describe the twist of fate forced the authors to add an institution’s development under successive epilogue, providing both a poignant directors, from Bart Bok to Jeremy Mould. account of the fires, and an expression of As the preface explains, this division also hope for the institution’s future. Inspecting reflects the contributions of the two the scene shortly after the devastation, authors. Historian Tom Frame was largely Prime Minister John Howard promised responsible for the first half, while Don government assistance in rebuilding the Faulkner, the observatory’s former Associ- site. Like many others, he lamented the ate Director for Education and Outreach, © Australian Academy of Science 200410.1071/HR03015 0727-3061/04/010121 122 Historical Records of Australian Science, Volume 15 Number 1 took on the second after Frame’s appoint- The way in which the passions of the ment as Anglican Bishop to the Australian directors shaped the observatory’s research Defence Force. I have to confess to a priorities are interestingly observed, how- certain weary familiarity when I learned of ever, the impact of staff is not so easy to the structure and division of responsibili- determine. Bok, for example, insisted that ties. Too often, it seems, the recent past is all staff and students undertake observa- deemed to be the province of retired scien- tional projects, forbidding purely theoreti- tists rather than professional historians. cal studies. This is described as ‘especially I was won over by the book’s engaging hard’ on some researchers, but you are left style, and enjoyed the second half more wondering about the tensions that ensued than the first. Although the latter chapters (p. 151). The directors tend to loom so mainly comprise a summary of the obser- large within the narrative that it is difficult vatory’s changing research effort, they gain to form much of an impression of the much from the author’s enthusiasm. The community as a whole. sense of excitement builds, particularly as One characteristic that a number of the the observatory pursues fundamental ques- directors did seem to share was a peculiar tions relating to the nature and history of sense of humour. Woolley, it is suggested, the universe. The MACHO Project, an was ‘addicted to the one-line put-down’, attempt to track down the universe’s ‘miss- demonstrated most painfully at the 1947 ing matter’, is probably the most well ANZAAS congress. When asked where he known of these endeavours, having won thought the exciting new field of radio the coveted front page spot in Nature. At astronomy would be in ten years’ time, he times the narrative does fall back into lists replied, ‘Forgotten!’ (p.108). This was of people and projects, but the feeling is perhaps one of the lowest points in the less one of worthy commemoration than an often frosty relationship between Mount expression of the joy of research. You are Stromlo and the Sydney-based radio left with a sense of the observatory’s intel- astronomers, a relationship that provides lectual evolution, and a desire to get one of the connecting themes in the second outside with a telescope. half of the book. Even though collabora- Equally as fascinating are the personali- tions between the optical and radio astron- ties of the directors themselves. They were, omers became increasingly common, the to put it mildly, a diverse bunch, both in first signs of a lasting thaw did not emerge their research enthusiasms and their per- until Don Matthewson, who had worked sonal habits. As Ben Gascoigne observed both at Stromlo and in the CSIRO Division of Richard Woolley and Bart Bok: ‘they of Radiophysics, was appointed director in were men of widely different character and 1977. temperament who detested each other’ The other major characters in the (p. 131). The differences were perhaps not Stromlo story are the telescopes. Perhaps always so acute, but with contrasts such as more than any other scientific institution, those between the extroverted Bok and the the history of an observatory is bound up shy Olin Eggen, or the refined patrician in the history of its instruments. In Woolley and the self-confessed larrikin Stromlo’s case, the telescopes existed Alex Rodgers, it is difficult not to see this before the observatory, as inaugural direc- line-up as a lesson in the differing styles of tor, Geoffrey Duffield, gathered donated scientific leadership. And I am still trying instruments from around the world even as work out how Eggen, whose working day he was lobbying the Commonwealth was between noon and near-dawn, government for its creation. Successive managed on one meal a day. directors continued arguing for bigger and Review Section 123 better facilities. Woolley secured a 74-inch Related to this is the book’s failure to reflector, Bok obtained an additional site at offer any real explanation of its title — Siding Spring, and Eggen championed what is it that makes Stromlo ‘an Austral- Stromlo’s interests in the development of ian observatory’? Duffield’s campaign suc- the Anglo–Australian Telescope, while ceeded with the establishment of the Matthewson pushed forward with the Commonwealth Solar Observatory, later Advanced Technology Telescope. But even simply known as the Commonwealth as each victory was won, the realisation Observatory. The institution was one of the firmed that neither Mount Stromlo, nor the first to be built in the nation’s capital, and continent as a whole, could provide a site would eventually become part of the Aus- that would enable Australian optical tralian National University. It was one of astronomy to compete with the world’s the Commonwealth’s earliest forays into best. In later years emphasis shifted the realm of scientific research, and yet we towards involvement in large, internation- are offered no suggestions as to how the ally funded facilities overseas. observatory might have contributed to a The early chapters, detailing the estab- sense of national prestige or hopes for lishment of the observatory, don’t seem to national development. Instead of examin- carry the same sense of excitement. Duff- ing the place of science and education in ield’s personality appears somehow more the nation-building agenda, or the imperial elusive, and his energetic efforts on behalf cachet of the solar physics enterprise, we are directed instead towards the scientists’ of solar physics become rather submerged powers of persuasion. in the detail of meetings and resolutions. Despite a number of setbacks and diffi- There is some confusion in the chronology. culties, astronomy in Australia has bene- Even though the shifting political fortunes fited through the public support of a series of the early twentieth century are complex, of large and expensive projects. The Great it doesn’t seem quite fair to make Liberal Melbourne Telescope did not bring the Prime Minister Joseph Cook a minister in success hoped for it, but it was followed in the Fisher Labor government (p. 28). In the twentieth century by the Common- fact it was Cook, not Fisher, who met with wealth Solar Observatory, the Parkes radio a high-powered delegation of astronomers telescope, the Anglo–Australian Telescope, during the British Association for the and the Australia Telescope. The latter Advancement of Science meeting in 1914. notably opened amidst a cloud of green A minor matter of detail, perhaps, but and gold balloons, funded as part of Aus- made more significant by the fact that the tralia’s bicentenary celebrations. There has delegation also included Cook’s former been a nationalistic element to the coun- leader, Alfred Deakin. Moreover, a slip of try’s astronomical ambitions. Perhaps such this kind seems to reflect a feeling that themes are reckoned beyond the scope of politicians and bureaucrats are essentially an institutional history, but we might at dispensable in what is, after all, a story of least have expected a greater attempt to scientific achievement.