Anne Walker (astronomer)

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.[1] She was one of a number of women 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.

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.

Walker was born at Wickham Market, Suffolk on 21 October 1863.[2] 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. 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.[2] 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 earth tremor on 22 April 1884, when she had to stop while wires in the eyepiece vibrated.[3] From 1892, Walker became Graham's observation partner and from 1894 to 1896, she observed alone.[2][4]

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.[2][5] She emigrated to join family in Australia and died there on 2 March 1940 in Glen Huntly, Victoria.[6][2]

It has been suggested[1] 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.