Mary Proctor and the Cawthron observatory project: a lost history of the Mount Stromlo Observatory

Abstract

Between 1912 and 1914, the Anglo-American popularizer of astronomy, Mary Proctor, undertook a tour of Australia and New Zealand in order to promote a solar observatory project that would ultimately be realized as the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia. Proctor came at the request of Walter Geoffrey Duffield, who would go on to be the first Director of the Mt Stromlo Observatory and who saw the need to raise funds and public support for the project. Proctor’s tour was high-profile and nearly saw the realization of a solar observatory as part of the Cawthron Institute at Nelson, New Zealand. Despite this, Proctor’s tour is absent from histories of Mount Stromlo and, until recently, had also been overlooked in New Zealand. I argue that this historical lacuna speaks to a number of historiographical biases: for success over failure; against the role of public activities in scientific work; and downplaying the contribution of women. Mary Proctor was a significant transitional figure in the history of early twentieth-century science-communication who should be more widely recognised.