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. 1 2 3 4 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. 1 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. 1 2 3 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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