The Weatherman from Greenwich Charles Todd

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Weatherman from Greenwich Charles Todd Charles Todd wasCharles Todd was the Weather man from Charles Todd was the Weather man from Greenwich. An ambitious and eager young man, he Greenwich. An ambitious and eager young man, he came to Adelaide in 1855. He gained international came to Adelaide in 1855. He gained international The Weathermanfame for his from work on the InternationalGreenwich Telegraph, fame for his work on the International Telegraph, but he was also the first Government Astronomer THE WEATHERMANbut he was also the first Government Astronomer THE WEATHERMAN and Meteorologist in the colony and his pioneering and Meteorologist in the colony and his pioneering work remains important today. WEATHERMAN THE FROMwork remains important today. WEATHERMAN THE FROM This highly readable social history book tells the GREENWICHThis highly readable social history book tells the GREENWICH story of his early life from his birth in 1826 until story of his early life from his birth in 1826 until his career was well-established at the beginning of his career was well-established at the beginning of the 1860s. It is the story of a young man growing Charles Toddthe 1860s. - It1826 is the story to of a young1910 man growing Charles Todd - 1826 to 1910 up at a time of great and dramatic change when up at a time of great and dramatic change when the Industrial Revolution was running at breakneck the Industrial Revolution was running at breakneck speed. Steam power transformed manufacturing, speed. Steam power transformed manufacturing, railways transformed the movement of people and railways transformed the movement of people and the telegraph transformed the movement of ideas. the telegraph transformed the movement of ideas. Social demands of ordinary people were beginning Social demands of ordinary people were beginning to transform society. Charles Todd’s early life to transform society. Charles Todd’s early life was greatly affected by these developments, both was greatly affected by these developments, both FROM FROM directly and indirectly and they prepared him for This is theMeteorologist, story of an directlyTelegrapher, ambitious and indirectly and Electrician, theyyoung prepared him forman who Meteorologist, Telegrapher, Electrician, his life in Adelaide. Postmaster-General,his Astronomer, life in Adelaide. Postmaster-General, Astronomer, South Australian South Australian But the book is not just about Charles Todd. It’s also cameGREENWICH to Adelaide in 1855.But the book is not just about Charles Todd. It’s also GREENWICH Charles Todd gained widespreadabout the people he knew fame and the forlives they his led. work on about the people he knew and the lives they led. We see what daily life was like in Adelaide when he We see what daily life was like in Adelaide when he the international telegrapharrived andand how it hadwas developed knighted in its first twenty by Queen The highly readable socialarrived and howhistory it had developed brings in its first twentyalive the years. There had been problems in the first years, years. There had been problems in the first years, but by 1855, Adelaide and the colony generally were times he lived in and showsbut by 1855, Adelaidewhat andlife the colonywas generally like. were Victoria. He was also the well-settledfirst andGovernment expanding rapidly. It was a Astronomerlively well-settled and expanding rapidly. It was a lively and welcoming town. and welcoming town. and Meteorologist in South Australia. His pioneering Charles Todd was born in London in 1826. Society work in these fields remains important today. was changing at a greatTony pace. Rogers Railways transformed Tony Rogers But more than that, he was a competent electrician. the movement of peopleJudy andFerrante goods, the telegraph Judy Ferrante He became Postmaster-General. He was a scientist, a transformed the movementAustralian Meteorological of ideas. Association Steam power Australian Meteorological Association philosopher and a devoted husband and father. ISBN 978-0-646-97738-6 transformed manufacturing. Social demands of ISBN 978-0-646-97738-6 ordinary people transformed society. The world of his youth 9 780646 977386 > 9 780646 977386 > This book looks at his early life. Dramatic changes It was an exciting time to be growing up and were happening in English society when he was born. Charles took advantage of the opportunities that These all influenced him and prepared him for his were offered to him. famous future. It was exciting too when he arrived in Adelaide. The Weatherman There had been problems in the early years, but they The world he came to had been overcome and the colony was well-settled from Charles Todd arrived in South Australia in 1855 when and expanding rapidly. He was welcomed as part of he was 29 years old. It was a young society and a new that expansion. Greenwich world for him. The earlier settlers had come from Britain too and were already forging a different community. He He was South Australia’s first Astronomical and Charles Todd - 1826 to 1910 Meteorological Observer and he was also contracted had to learn their attitudes and their ways. He found it Meteorologist, Telegrapher, Electrician, an exciting challenge. to install the first Electric Telegraph in the colony. Postmaster-General, Astronomer, South Australian So what’s the book about? It’s about daily life, in South Australia and in England, Tony Rogers as much as it’s about Charles himself. It gives a portrait Australian Meteorological Association Judy Ferrante of him, but it also gives the background to that portrait. Level 4 - 431 King William Street It tells us about the issues that interested people and Adelaide 5000 how they were coping with change. And because it is Australian Australian Meteorological Association Association about people and daily life, it tells us a lot more as well. Not just about the weather but day-to-day life as well Looking back at the lives of people, we learn a lot about many aspects of social activity. So this book is Politics Astronomy not just about Charles Todd and the weather. It’s about A new colony is under the control of the Colonial In the nineteenth century ships needed to know the the Industrial Revolution, people, politics, religion, Office in London, but orders from them take months exact time in order to navigate safely. It was as important astronomy and lots of other things as well. to arrive. Meanwhile day-to-day-life goes on and local then as radar and global positioning are today. Studying decisions are made, some good, some bad. the stars was the one way that the correct time could The Industrial Revolution be determined. That was why the Royal Observatory, When Charles Todd was born, the Industrial Religion Greenwich, Charles Todd’s workplace and possibly the Revolution was bringing about change at a breathtaking Some histories suggest that in the nineteenth most prestigious observatory in the world, came under pace. Steam power had begun transforming industry century everyone was religious and went to church. the control of the Admiralty. And that was why Charles in the previous century. The expiry of James Watt’s This wasn’t true. A national survey in 1851 found that Todd was appointed the Government Astronomer in patents in 1800 then led to further developments and 42% of British citizens didn’t attend church. Among South Australia. steam engines became more powerful, more compact those that did, the Deists thought that the bible was and portable. By the time Charles was ten years old, twaddle. Unitarians believed that the idea of a godly The Electric Telegraph railways were changing concepts of distance with their trinity was simply wrong. It wasn’t necessary to The first patent for an electric telegraph had speed and efficiency. Within another year or two the be a Christian in order to be a Quaker. There were been issued in 1837 to William Cooke and Charles electric telegraph was transforming the sharing of ideas. Unitarians, Quakers, Agnostics and Atheists among Wheatstone. The development of the technology can Ordinary people were demanding rights and were no the first settlers in South Australia and a determination be traced back over many years. It’s a fascinating story. longer willing to be the vassals of the rich. that there would not be an established church as there Even the false claims of Samuel Morse are intriguing. was in England. One of Charles Todd’s tasks was to install an electric People telegraph from Adelaide to Port Adelaide. He had been People came to South Australia in the early days Sex closely involved with the technology in England and he seeking new opportunities. Henry Hussey, or Harry as In the early colony, most lived moral lives but knew William Cooke. his family called him, arrived as a young teenager, in attitudes were fairly relaxed and local newspapers 1839, and later wrote about his life. His lively account is reported the latest scandals in great detail. It was South Australia Was Different told here too. He brings alive those times and this tells certainly not a repressed society. The age of consent South Australia was different from the other us much about the world that Charles Todd came to. was ten, prostitution was legal and brothels were Australian colonies. It was the only one to be authorised It wasn’t an entirely male-dominated world either. common. Some claimed using their services was only by an Act of Parliament and it was the only one in Matilda Evans wrote a hugely successful series of a minor sin as it satisfied a man’s natural urges. which there were not a lot more men than women. novels about life in the colony. Catherine Helen Spence Officially there weren’t any convicts either, but that did as well and she became a newspaper commentator was a bit debatable.
Recommended publications
  • The Overland Telegraph
    THE OVERLAND TELEGRAPH By Ron McMullen former Telegraphist, Telegraph Supervisor, Telegraph Instructor, Senior Postal Clerk and Postmaster in the former Postmaster-General’s Department. Several detailed books have been written on this subject so I will only briefly cover the topic. The completion of the Overland Telegraph Line in 1872 from Port Augusta in South Australia to Port Darwin in the Northern Territory and connection from Darwin to Java on 20 October 1872 by sea cable, signalled the end of communication isolation from the rest of the world. Apart from being a renowned construction feat it led to the beginning of settlement in the arid central regions of Australia. Before completion of the line the only means of communication was by sea with landfall at Port Adelaide where steamers were met by reporters who quickly read the news and rushed to the telegraph office for onward transmission by Morse code to the eastern colonies. The Scottish explorer John McDouall Stuart, after several attempts, pioneered the route across the continent from South to North from Adelaide to Darwin. The colony of Victoria was also interested in finding a trans continental south to north crossing and the ill fated Burke and Wills expedition came close to achieving this having reached the mangroves near the Gulf of Carpentaria, but perished on the return journey. Queensland also wanted the sea cable to be brought to Normanton and thence down the east coast of Australia. At that time the Northern Territory was part of New South Wales and with construction of a telegraph line in mind the South Australian Government successfully applied to the British Government in 1863 for annexation and in mid 1870 construction of a line between Port August and Darwin was authorised.
    [Show full text]
  • William Henry Bragg 1862 - 1942 Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915
    William Henry Bragg 1862 - 1942 Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915 William Henry Bragg was a pioneer British scientist in solid- state physics. He was born on July 2, 1862, in Wigton, Cumberland, England. Bragg's father came from a family of farmers and merchant seamen. His mother, a sweet and kind woman, was the daughter of the local vicar. He did not remember her very well, as she died when he was about seven. The small boy was taken to the family of his uncle, the owner of a pharmacy and grocery shop. In 1875 his father took him back and sent him to school at King William’s College, Isle of Man. Bragg was good in his lessons and sports and became the head boy. He was fond of all games and played them rather well. In 1881 Bragg tried for Cambridge University,but the first interview was not a success, and he had to return to school.After the next attempt he was granted a scholarship to Trinity College. Here he worked very hard at mathematics and two years later obtained third place in the final Both he and his son examination. Bragg played tennis and hockey well. His teacher was the famous physicist J.J. lectured at the Royal Thomson with whom he also played tennis. Thomson advised him to send an application for the Institution post of professor of mathematics and physics at Adelaide University in Australia. After an interview Bragg was appointed and went to Australia where he began his career. In Adelaide the young professor became one of the best lecturers and a brilliant experimentalist.
    [Show full text]
  • SO WHO the HELL WAS ALICE ANYWAY? the Naming of Alice Springs by Greg Barron
    SO WHO THE HELL WAS ALICE ANYWAY? The Naming of Alice Springs by Greg Barron William Whitfield Mills, Overseer of Section C of the Overland Telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin, was heading north with men and heavy equipment, on the way to the starting point for his section of the line. He wrote in a report to his boss, Charles Todd, Superintendent of Telegraphs: “On the 7th (March 1871) I started again for the Ranges, the drays in the meantime following the Hugh (River). On March 11th I again arrived at the MacDonnell Ranges and was successful in finding a pass, about 30 miles east of Stuart's track, with numerous waterholes and springs, the principal of which is the Alice Spring which I had the honour of naming after Mrs Todd.” Lady Alice Todd, wife of the Superintendent of Telegraphs, inspired not only the name of the town, Alice Springs, but also the Todd River. Who was she, and why did she deserve such adoration? Alice Gillam Bell was born in 1836 in Cambridgeshire, England. When she was twelve years old a young man, Charles Heavitree Todd, assistant Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, came to call on her mother. Alice was lying on a bear skin rug in front of the fire, watching the visitor, impressed by his serious ways and dark good looks. “If no one else will have you, then I will marry you, Mr Todd,” she told him. Unlikely as it must have seemed at the time, the pair exchanged vows a few years later and Charles whisked her away to Adelaide, Australia.
    [Show full text]
  • Transit of Venus 6 June 2012 Page 1 of 7
    ASA Factsheet No.24 Transit of Venus 6 June 2012 Page 1 of 7 Transit of Venus 6 June 2012 Warning: It is very dangerous to look directly at the Sun, especially through binoculars or telescopes. SERIOUS EYE DAMAGE MAY RESULT. A safe method of indirectly observing the Sun’s disc is described in this Factsheet. On Wednesday 6 June 2012 Venus will cross in front of the Sun with its whole passage from beginning to end visible from most of Australia and New Zealand. Although it last happened only eight years ago, as we see Venus’s dark silhouette move across the disc of the Sun we will be witnessing one of the rarest and most famous events in astronomy, a transit of Venus, which will not occur again until December 2117. What is a transit? Figure 1 – A photograph of the 8 June 2004 transit of Venus taken from Randwick, Sydney, NSW. Courtesy Neil Saunders http://www.flickr.com/photos/nsaunders/433208962/ A transit occurs when, as seen from Earth, a planet appears to move across the disc of the Sun. Only the two inner planets, Mercury and Venus, can ever be found between the Sun and the Earth and therefore be seen in transit. A transit does not occur each time the planets are in the same direction as the Sun because usually they pass above or below the Sun in the sky. A transit is somewhat like an eclipse of the Sun. However, Mercury and Venus only appear as small dark spots against the disc of the Sun instead of covering the disc like the Moon does during an eclipse.
    [Show full text]
  • The JOURNAL of the Radiology History & Heritage Charitable Trust
    The Radiology History & Heritage Charitable Trust The JOURNAL of the Radiology History & Heritage Charitable Trust Number 12, Autumn/Winter1999 Editor: Dr Adrian Thomas BSc FRCP FRCR Department of Clinical Radiology Bromley Hospital 17 Cromwell Avenue, Bromley, Kent BR2 9AJ UK Tel: +44(0) 181 289 7070 Fax: +44(0) 181 289 7003 E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] URL: www.rhhct.org.uk Editorial otes Welcome to the new issue of the RHHCT Journal and I hope it contains something of interest to all. I thought it appropriate to change the name to Journal since it has become rather more than a simple newsletter. If you have an article or any comments to contribute then please contact me. I am particularly interested in an article on radiotherapy for the web site. I hope to produce the next newsletter in time for IOS 2000. It is interesting to realise that next year we will be saying that the discovery of X-rays was in the century before last! The year 1895 will suddenly appear further away. Robert George, the Regional Secretary for Asia/Australasia for ISRRT has written a most interesting article on Adelaide and the Braggs (father William and son Lawrence) and their X-ray activities. It is worth noting that Sir William Bragg gave the Mackenzie Davidson Memorial Lecture in 1934 and was made an Honorary Member of the British Institute of Radiology in 1918. Sir Lawrence Bragg gave the Silvanus Thompson Memorial Lecture in 1955. The piece on Early Spiritualism and the Early Investigators by Angela Howard was only included in this newsletter after some thought.
    [Show full text]
  • GETTING IT TOGETHER from Colonies to Federation
    GETTING IT TOGETHER From Colonies to Federation south australia People and Places INVESTIGATIoNs oF AUSTRALIa’s JOURNEYInvestigations of Australia’s journey TO NATIoNHOOD FOR THE MIDDlE to nationhood for the middle years classroom YEARS CLASSROOGETTM ING IT TOGETHER south australIa – PEoPlE aND PLACEs © CoMMoNWEALTH oF AUSTRALIa i Getting It Together: From Colonies to Federation has been funded by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House. Getting It Together: From Colonies to Federation – South Australia ISBN: 978 1 74200 098 5 SCIS order number: 1427628 Full bibliographic details are available from Curriculum Corporation. PO Box 177 Carlton South Vic 3053 Australia Tel: (03) 9207 9600 Fax: (03) 9910 9800 Email: [email protected] Website: www.curriculum.edu.au Published by the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House PO Box 7088 Canberra BC ACT 2610 Tel: (02) 6270 8222 Fax: (02) 6270 8111 www.moadoph.gov.au September 2009 © Commonwealth of Australia 2009 This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Commonwealth Copyright Administration, Attorney General’s Department, National Circuit, Barton ACT 2600 or posted at www.ag.gov.au/cca This work is available for download from the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House: http://moadoph.gov.au/learning/resources-and-outreach Edited by Katharine Sturak and Zoe Naughten Designed by Deanna Vener GETTING IT TOGETHER south australIa – PEoPlE aND PLACEs © CoMMoNWEALTH oF AUSTRALIa People and Places In the years before Federation, South Australia was different to the other Australian colonies in many ways.
    [Show full text]
  • Stuart Traynor Contents
    ALICE SPRINGS From singing wire to iconic outback town Stuart Traynor Contents Prologue: The voyage of the Atalanta 1 1 Connecting Australia to the world 4 2 Arguably Australia’s greatest explorer 11 3 Queenslanders get the rough end of the pineapple 22 4 A positive and popular man 30 5 The singing wire to Alice 41 6 Atherreyurre, the Alice spring 58 7 The line in John Mueller’s day 68 8 The dawn of civilisation and Christianity 79 9 ‘The Giant of the Interior’ 95 10 Trouble brewing on the frontier 111 11 The ‘rush’ to the East MacDonnells 125 12 A town is born 133 13 Rough justice on the frontier 143 14 ‘Gillen time’ 156 Prologue The voyage of the Atalanta There was mist about and not much wind this Sunday morning 8 April 1866 as the Atalanta approached Port Adelaide.1 Edward Allchurch had been on deck from an early hour. The 37-year-old policeman from Brighton in Sussex opened a hatch to get air into his family’s stuffy and cramped living quarters, then rang the bell to advise passengers of the morning church service. Hopefully this would be their last day on board. Ten weeks had passed since the three-masted sailing ship left England with 394 immigrants on board. Five days earlier, off the coast of Western Australia, seaman Thomas Moore had fallen overboard while working on the forecastle. The loss had cast gloom over the ship. It had not been an easy trip for Edward Allchurch. His wife Anne was seven months pregnant when they set sail from Plymouth on 23 January and was sick for much of the journey.
    [Show full text]
  • History of the Northern Territory
    Early history of the Northern Territory Presented by Gregory Cope, National Archives of Australia NAA: M948, 46 Northern Territory = 1.35 million sq. kms Evidence of human settlement = 50,000 years. Population = 244,000 Evolution of British Colonies in Australia Evolution of British Colonies in Australia Evolution of British Colonies in Australia 1847 Evolution of British Colonies in Australia British Colonies to the Federation of Australia Evolution of the Northern Territory Source: Wikipedia PORT ESSINGTON - named on 17 April 1818 by Phillip Parker King in HMS Mermaid – sketch by PP King. 1818 – Port Essington, Inner Harbour. Failed attempts at white settlement – Northern Territory Port Essington Victoria Fort Wellington, Raffles Bay Fort Dundas Escape Cliffs (Palmerston) Darwin First British settlement – Fort Dundas Melville Island 1824-1828 Sketch of Fort Dundas by J.S. Roe on HMS ship HMS Tamar, 1 November 1824 - Battye Library W.A. The British Settlement of Fort Dundas, Melville Island Fort Dundas 1827 to Port Meville 2017 Pirlangimpi is two kilometres from the site of the first British settlement in northern Australia - Fort Dundas. Ruins of Fort Dundas, 1975 – NAA: Series A6180 The results of the 1975 – survey of Port Dundas Site Fort Dundas - today Fort Wellington 1827 - 1829 View of Raffles Bay, with Croker Island in the distance Historical Society NT – Trip to Fort Wellington July 2008 http://www.historicalsocietynt.org.au/downloads/CampingFortWellingtonCobourgNTJul08.pdf Victoria Settlement - Port Essington 1838 - 1850 1840 - New Victoria Lithographe from Voyage au Pôle Sud et en Océanie by Jules Dumont d'Urville Port Essington – Surveyed by Mr Charles J. Tyers of the HMS Alligator 1839 Site of first landing – Record Point.
    [Show full text]
  • The Overland Telegraph Line D 8065(L)
    Foundation Documents 1852-1883 The Overland Telegraph Line In the late nineteenth century, Australia’s communication links with the rest of the world hung by a slender, 3200-kilometre thread. It was the Overland Telegraph Line (OTL), a single strand of galvanized wire that spanned the continent form north to south, linking all the colonies (except Western Australia) with each other, and Australia with the rest of the world. The OTL was the greatest engineering feat undertaken in nineteenth-century Australia. Charles Todd (1826-1910) was in charge of the OTL project. He had arrived in London in 1855 to take up the post of Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs in South Australia. Crossing then impenetrable and unexplored land, which just a decade before had claimed the lives of the explorers Burke and Wills, the line followed John McDouall Stuart’s pioneering route through the centre of the continent, which in turn was guided by Indigenous trackways that lined permanent water sites. With the completion of the line, which ran in Port Augusta in South Australia to Port Darwin, on the site of the present-day Darwin, messages that had once taken three months to reach London now took less than a day. (The line in Australia had 11 repeater stations, positioned about 200 kilometres apart. Staff at each station would receive a message, write it down, then retransmit it to the next station, and so on down the line.) Work had begun on 15 September 1870, and the final join was made on 22 August 1872, eight months behind schedule.
    [Show full text]
  • In This Issue…
    June 2021 In this issue….. • Connecting to the oceans: supporting ocean literacy and public engagement • Macquarie perch back in the wild after 70 year absence • Dirty Divers and Freshwater Zen Cover picture: A jungle perch by • Long-term effects of the 2019–20 Brendan Ebner Bushfires—water quality and Murray crayfish VOL 51: (1) June 2021 ISSN 2208 - 7028 Lateral Lines June 2021 ASFB Executive 2019-20 Please Visit the ASFB website (http://www.asfb.org.au/about/current- executive-council/) for contact details of Executive Council Members President: Alison King Vice President: Gretchen Grammer Past President: Stephen “Harry” Balcombe Secretary: Charles Todd Treasurer: Lenore Litherland Workshop/Conference Coordinator: Brendan Ebner Newsletter Editor: Nick Boucher Communications Manager: Andrew Katsis State Representatives: Mischa Turschwell (QLD) Kathy Cure (WA) Joel Williams (NSW) Leanne Currey (QLD) Gerry Closs (NZ) Katherine Cheshire (NSW) Sean Tracey (TAS) Nick Ling (NZ) Michael Hammer (NT) Jonah Yick (TAS) Tiffany Sih (VIC) Blake Taylor (NT) Hugh Allen (ACT) James Shelley (VIC) Jasmin Martino (SA) Ben Broadhurst (ACT) Kynan Hartog-Burnett (Students) Owen Burnell (SA) Alissa Tate (WA) Laura Smith (Students) Lateral Lines is the Newsletter style journal for the Australian Society for Fish Biology (ASFB), published twice a year. It welcomes contributions from all its members. The ASFB was founded in 1971 with the aim of ‘promoting research, education and management of fish and fisheries and providing a forum for the exchange of information’. Brendan Ebner Brendan Ebner is a fish ecologist working for TropWATER, James Cook University and is also a Visiting Scientist with CSIRO Land & Water in Atherton, Queensland.
    [Show full text]
  • Carte Du Ciel – Mapping the Sky in 18
    Photographing the Sky in 1887 - Australia’s Contribution to the Carte du Ciel Project Joanne Tatarynowicz Abstract In 1887 the Paris Observatory initiated a project to map the entire sky using the newly developed dry photography techniques. The ambitious project was an international venture and included eighteen observatories from around the world. Each observatory was designated a section of the sky to systematically photograph with the results eventually being collated into the Astrographic Catalogue (AC). In Australia, the Sydney, Melbourne and Perth Observatories took part. Introduction In 1838, the director of the Paris Observatory, Francois Arago, produced a photograph of the Moon with the photographic pioneer, Louis Daguerre. In January the following year, on Daguerre’s request, Arago formally presented the invention of the daguerrotype to a meeting of the French Academy of Science. From that point, as with photography in general, astronomical photography developed at a fast pace and in 1885 a photograph taken of the Pleiades star cluster by the Henry brothers, Paul and Prosper, inspired the then director of the Paris Observatory, Admiral Ernest Barthelemy Mouchez, to propose that the entire sky should be photographed in the manner the Henry brothers had developed. Sir David Gill, a Scot at the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, himself a pioneer in astrophotography, joined with Mouchez in espousing the idea, as did Otto Struve, the Russo- German director of the Poulkovo Observatory. Together, Mouchez, Gill and Struve arranged the “Congrès International de la Carte du Ciel” which took place in Paris in 1887. The result was the launch of the first major international scientific project – the Carte du Ciel, which was to produce the first photographic record of the sky.
    [Show full text]
  • Semi-Detached Houses
    Heritage of the City of Adelaide SEMI-DETACHED HOUSES 57-60 Lefevre Terrace # B EAC1 1# D:\PH O TO _This CD building \IM AGES\IM which comprises G0 a 00pair 8of .PCD 632 6 3 13 2 17 2 4 867 7 4 37 4 1 867 7 4 37 4 1 P B4 0 75 27 299 205 0 semidetached houses was the first part of a high quality speculative development of the late 1870s and mid-1880s carried out by the Adelaide jeweller Henry Steiner. He bought the land for this development in June 1878. It is of interest that Steiner crafted the mayoral badge and chain which were presented to the City Corporation in 1882. The semi-detached house closest to the corner of Tynte Street was occupied for several years (CD Ref 1724/8) by Professor William Henry Bragg and his family. Bragg came from England to South Australia to take up the position as Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Adelaide in 1886. After he married (a daughter of Charles Todd) they moved to Lefevre Terrace in 1889, renting the property from Henry Steiner and Charles Goode. Here, their two sons were born. One was William Lawrence in 1890 who was to become as equally renowned a physicist as his father. After their permanent return to England in 1910 father and son were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1915. The family lived at Lefevre Terrace until their temporary move to England in 1898 (on their return to Adelaide they lived at Catherwood House in the city).
    [Show full text]