Elizabeth Martha Beckley

Elizabeth Martha Beckley (c.1846-6 August 1927) was a pioneering British astronomical photographer.[1][2][3]

She was the daughter of Robert Beckley, a mechanical engineer based at Kew Observatory, who developed the Beckley rain gauge and the Robinson-Beckley anemometer with Thomas Romney Robinson.[1][4]

Beckley worked at Kew Observatory from 1854 while still a young girl,[2] where she was one of the first women to work at an astronomical observatory.[5] She photographed the sun in the 1860s and 1870s using a photoheliograph.[1]

Beckley married fellow Kew Observatory employee George Mathews Whipple (15 September 1842-8 February 1893) in 1870.[5][6][7] They had five sons. The eldest was Robert Whipple, who was a scientific instrument collector, and founded the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.[1][5] While another was Francis Whipple, who was superintendent at Kew Observatory from 1925 to 1939.[8]

References
  1. Macdonald, Lee (9 March 2017). "'Work peculiarly fitting to a lady': Elizabeth Beckley and the early years of solar photography". conscicom.org. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  2. "Death of Mrs G M Whipple". Saffron Walden Weekly News. 12 August 1927. p. 5. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  3. "Deaths". Saffron Walden Weekly News. 12 August 1927. p. 16. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  4. "Two parts of Beckley recording rain gauge | Science Museum Group Collection". collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  5. Ptolemy, Photography and Pyjamas. Science Museum website.
  6. "1893Obs....16..141. Page 141". The Observatory. 16: 141. 1893. Bibcode:1893Obs....16..141. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  7. "Elizabeth Martha Beckley b. 1845 Battersea, Surrey, England: Whipple Database". whipple.one-name.net. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  8. Who Was Who 1941-1950. Bloomsbury Publishing, London. 1980. ISBN 0-7136-2131-1. Entry of Francis John Welsh Whipple.


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