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Table of Contents
The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908

Introduction

Early Colonial Weather Reporting

The Impact of the Telegraph

Beginnings of Intercolonial Co-operation

The Intercolonial Meteorological Conferences

The Role of Clement Wragge

Towards a Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Index
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Science and Technology in the Story of Australian Federation: The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908 - Endnotes

1. The federal power over telecommunications is in Section 51 (v), and over meteorology in Section 51 (viii) of the Constitution. See G. Sawer, The Australian Constitution (Canberra, 1975), 48-49. [Return to page 12]

2. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates (CPD), XXXI-XXXII (Canberra, 1906). 422-551 and 2136-2179. [Return to page 12]

3. Commonwealth Gazette, 50-55 (1906) and 68 (1907), 1476. [Return to page 12]

4. 'Report of the Meteorology Conference held in Melbourne, May 1907', Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers (CPP) 1907-8, II (Canberra. 1908), 24 pp. [Return to page 12] [Return to page 13]

5. See, for example, Wragge's comments in his journal, Wragge, 1 (pt. 2), (1902), 2. [Return to page 13]

6. F.J. Mines, Premiers Conferences in Australasia before Federation (Canberra, 1976), 71-143. [Return to page 13]

7. K.T. Livingston. 'Anticipating Federation: The Federalising of Telecommunications in Australia', Australian Historical Studies, 26 (1994), 97-117. [Return to page 13]

8. See the extended treatment of the intercolonial conferences by G.B. Barton, 'Historical Sketch of Australian Federation', published before the 1891 Federation Convention, printed as an appendix to the Yearbook of Australia, 1891. [Return to page 14]

9. CPD, XXXI, 422-439. [Return to page 14]

10. ibid., XXXII, 2136-2142. [Return to page 14]

11. W. Derham, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 37 (1731-2), 265; quoted by T.S. Feldman, 'The History of Meteorology, 1750-1800: A Study in the Quantification of Experimental Physics', PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1983, p. 208. [Return to page 15]

12. Feldman, op cit., p. 276. [Return to page 15]

13. This characterization of Humboldt's approach is due to Susan Faye Cannon, Science in Culture: The Early Victorian Period (New York, 1978), p. 105. [Return to page 15]

14. J.R. Fleming, Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 9-13. [Return to page 15]

15. Details of national weather services established during the nineteenth century are given in Gisela Kutzbach, The Thermal Theory of Cyclones: A History of Meteorological Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Boston, 1979), pp. 12-13. The practice of issuing forecasts generated considerable controversy and in both France and Britain was suspended for several years; see John L. Davis, 'Weather Forecasting and the Development of Meteorological Theory at the Paris Observatory, 1853-1878', Annals of Science, 41 (1984), 359-382, and Jim Burton, 'Robert FitzRoy and the Early History of the Meteorological Office', British Journal of the History of Science, 19 (1986), 147-176. [Return to page 15]

16. For the earlier work, see J. Gentilli, 'A History of Meteorological and Climatological Studies in Australia', University Studies in History, 5 (1967), 54-88. [Return to page 15]

17. Archer reported in his Statistical Register of Victoria, from the Foundation of the Colony ... [Melbourne, 1854], p. 411, that he had ordered a substantial number of meteorological instruments from England in April 1853. Smyth's first published report, dated 3 March 1856 and covering the period of eight months ending 31 January of that year, appeared in Victoria. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Council, Session 1855-56, vol. 2, A115. Later reports appeared in Victoria. Papers presented to Parliament by Command, Session 1856-57, vol. 4, no. 58, and ibid., Session 1858-59, vol. 2, no. 3. [Return to page 15]

18. Smyth, 'Meteorological Report and Diagrams of Barometric Pressure etc. for the eight months ending 31st January, 1856', p. 12. [Return to page 15]

19. ibid., p. 1. [Return to page 15]

20. Todd, 'Meteorological Work in Australia: A Review', Report of the Fifth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, Adelaide, 1893, 246-70; p. 248. [Return to page 16]

21. Monthly reports by Jevons appeared in the Sydney Magazine of Science and Art from its foundation in July 1857 until June 1858, but were thereafter supplied instead from the Observatory by Scott. By August 1858, Scott was able to report to the Philosophical Society of New South Wales that eleven stations were sending him reports once a month of observations made 'in accordance with the printed instructions' (Sydney Magazine of Science and Art, 2 [1858], 118-121). [Return to page 16]

22. Argus, 12 September 1856. [Return to page 16]

23. See Sydney Morning Herald, 29 April 1856, and Advertiser, 7 December 1858. [Return to page 16]

24. Advertiser, 18 May 1859; ibid., 28 December 1860. [Return to page 16]

25. Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 1859. Regular weather reports appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald from 1862, the number of locations reporting gradually increasing from 16 locations/towns in mid-1862 (14 in New South Wales) to 26 in 1864 (over 20 in NSW), 57 in 1859 (40 in New South Wales), and 92 in 1873 (65 in New South Wales); see Sydney Morning Herald, 9 July 1862, 7 January 1864, 26 March 1869 and 30 May 1873. [Return to page 16]

26. See, for example, Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 1871. [Return to page 16]

27. Smalley, 'The Present State of Astronomical, Magnetical, and Meteorological Science;
and the Practical Bearing of those Subjects', Transactions of the Philosophical Society of New South Wales, 1862-5, 347-56; p. 356. [Return to page 17]

28. H.C. Russell, The Sydney Observatory: History and Progress (Sydney, 1882), p. 9. [Return to page 17]

29. G. Neumayer, Results of the Magnetical, Nautical and Meteorological Observations Made and Collected at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, and at Various Stations in the Colony of Victoria, March, 1858, to February, 1859 (Melbourne, 1860); idem, Results of the Meteorological Observations taken in the Colony of Victoria, during the Years 1859-1862; and of the Nautical Observations Collected and Discussed at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, during the Years 1859-1862 (Melbourne, 1864); idem, Discussion of the Meteorological and Magnetical Observations Made at the Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, during the Years 1858-1863 (Mannheim, 1867). [Return to page 17]

30. W.N. Shaw, Manual of Meteorology. Volume I: Meteorology in History (Cambridge, 1926), p. 154 and passim. [Return to page 17]

31. R.W. Home and Hans-Jochen Kretzer, 'The Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne: New Documents relating to its Foundation', Historical Records of Australian Science 8(4) (1991), 213-243. [Return to page 17]

32. Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1867, pp. 1-2. Neumayer's reference to the direction of the wind reflected his acceptance of H.W. Dove's Humboldt-inspired general theory of the winds, which Neumayer claimed to have extended with his observations at Melbourne to southern hemisphere mid-latitudes; see his paper, 'On Dove's Law of the Turning of the Wind, as illustrated and supported by Observations made at the Flagstaff Meteorological and Magnetic Observatory, Melbourne', Transactions of the Philosophical Institute of Victoria, 4 (1860), 102-122. [Return to page 17]

33. Neumayer to Chief Secretary, Victoria, 15 June 1857; published as an appendix to Home and Kretzer, op. cit. (n. 31), p. 229. [Return to page 18]

34. Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1867, p. 4. [Return to page 18]

35. Neumayer, 'On the Lunar Atmospheric Tide at Melbourne', Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 15 (1867), 489-495. [Return to page 18]

36. Neumayer, op. cit. (n. 29), 1864, p. 143. [Return to page 18]

37. Todd, 'Meteorological Work in Australia', pp. 252-3. [Return to page 18]

38. Cannon, op. cit. (n. 13), chap. 3, 'Humboldtian Science'. [Return to page 19]

39. FitzRoy, The Weather Book: A Manual of Practical Meteorology (2nd ed., London, 1863), p. 78 and the charts at the end of the book; cf. Burton, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 160. [Return to page 19]

40. Buys Ballot, 'On the System of Forecasting the Weather pursued in Holland', Report of the Thirty-third Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Newcastle, 1863, pp. 20-21. [Return to page 19]

41. Ten years after returning from Australia, Neumayer, by then director of the German Naval Observatory in Hamburg, played a significant role in establishing the synoptic chart system in that country; Wilfried Schroder and Karl Heinrich Wiederkehr, 'Georg von Neumayer (1826-1909) und die internationale Entwicklung der Geophysik', Gesnerus, 49 (1992), 45-62. [Return to page 19]

42. Todd to Ellery, 13 August 1864; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 1. [Return to page 20]

43. Memorandum from Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 25 May 1876; ibid., VPRS 775, vol. 3, p. 7. [Return to page 20]

44. Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 25 July 1876; ibid., pp. 21-3. [Return to page 20]

45. Ellery, 'Report ... to the Board of Visitors of the Melbourne Observatory', 20 June 1876; ibid., VPRS 781, unit 1. [Return to page 20]

46. Russell to Ellery, 5 August 1876; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8. [Return to page 20]

47. Sydney Morning Herald, 5 February 1877, p. 4. [Return to page 20]

48. op. cit., n. 46. [Return to page 20]

49. E.J. White to Todd, 24 November 1875; ibid., VPRS 775, Unit 2, p. 704. [Return to page 20]

50. Russell to Ellery, 3 November 1876; ibid. [Return to page 20]

51. Todd to Ellery, 31 August 1876; ibid. [Return to page 20]

52. Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 28 February 1877, ibid., Vol. 3, p. 68; Ellery, 'The Present State of Meteorology', Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 14 (1877), 10-19, p.17. [Return to page 20]

53. Ellery to Victorian Chief Secretary, 28 February 1877, loc. cit. [Return to page 21]

54. There was an editorial in the Advertiser on 20 October 1879, urging Todd to issue a map, but it is uncertain when he began doing so. In the report of the 1888 intercolonial meteorological conference (see below), he was said to be issuing isobaric maps daily; yet the Advertiser on 12 March 1890 referred to 'a new weather map to be issued daily', as if this were an innovation. [Return to page 21]

55. Cf. Ellery, 'The Present State of Meteorology', loc. cit. Ellery contemplated issuing coastal weather forecasts as early as 1865 (Ellery to Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs, 28 September 1865, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 1). [Return to page 21]

56. Todd to Ellery, 31 August 1876; Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8. [Return to page 21]

57. Ellery, 'Report ... to the Board of Visitors of the Melbourne Observatory', 22 May 1877: ibid., VPRS 781, unit 1. [Return to page 21]

58. Argus, 26 September 1881. [Return to page 21]

59. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 March 1888; Adelaide Register, 27 September 1888. [Return to page 21]

60. Russell to Ellery, 27 May 1877, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8. [Return to page 22]

61. 'Minutes and Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Sydney on llth, 13th, 14th November 1879', New South Wales, Legislative Assembly, Votes and Proceedings 1879-80 (NSWVP), 5 (Sydney 1880), 1229-1236. The report's separate internal pagination will be used in citations here; according to this, the passage quoted appears on p. 3. [Return to page 22]

62. ibid., p. 4. [Return to page 22]

63. ibid., pp. 4, 8. [Return to page 23]

64. ibid., p. 6. [Return to page 23]

65. ibid., p. 4. [Return to page 24]

66. ibid., p. 6. [Return to page 24]

67. ibid., p. 5. [Return to page 24]

68. 'Minutes of Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Melbourne on the 21st, 22nd, 25th, 26th and 27th of April 1881', VPP 1880-81, 4 (Melbourne, 1881), 1159-1184 (internally paginated). [Return to page 24]

69. ibid., p. 22 (internal pagination). [Return to page 25]

70. ibid., pp. 22, 23. [Return to page 25]

71. ibid., p. 7. [Return to page 25]

72. ibid., p. 17. [Return to page 25]

73. W. Orchiston, 'Illuminating Incidents in Antipodean Astronomy: John Tebbutt and the Sydney Observatory Directorship of 1862', Australian Journal of Astronomy, 3 (1988), 149-158. [Return to page 26]

74. J. Perdrix, The Last Great Speculum: The 48-inch Great Melbourne Telescope', Australian Journal of Astronomy, 4 (19921, 149-163; S.C.B. Gascoigne, 'Robert L.J. Ellery, His Life and Times'. Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia (forthcoming). [Return to page 26]

75. 'Minutes of Proceedings of the Intercolonial Meteorological Conference held at Melbourne', SAPP, 1889, vol. 3, no. 47 (internally paginated). [Return to page 27]

76. ibid., p. 6 (internal pagination). [Return to page 28]

77. ibid. [Return to page 28]

78. Sydney Morning Herald, 1 January 1889. [Return to page 28]

79. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1890. [Return to page 28]

80. See, for example, Wragge to Ellery, 19 July 1890, and Todd to Ellery, 29 July 1890, Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 780, Box 8. Todd and Wragge had a public interchange in South Australian Register, 2 January and 13 February 1891. See also Newspaper Clippings (Meteorological), vol. 3, Australian Archives [National Archives of Australia], Adelaide, AP810. [Return to page 28]

81. 'Minutes of Proceedings ...' (op. cit., n. 75), p. 7. [Return to page 29]

82. ibid., p. 8. [Return to page 30]

83. ibid., p. 12. [Return to page 30]

84. ibid., p. 13. [Return to page 31]

85. Wragge, 'A Brief Account of the Work and Aims of the Chief Weather Bureau, Brisbane', Proceedings and Transactions of the Queensland Branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, 7 (1891-92), 55-64. [Return to page 31]

86. Wragge, 'How I Make My Weather Forecasts—II', Review of Reviews, 20 November 1894, pp. 290-2, p. 290. [Return to page 31]

87. ibid., p. 291; also the first part of the article, ibid., 20 September 1894, pp. 225-9, at p. 226, and Wragge, 'The Work of the Chief Weather Bureau of Australasia', The Antipodean, 1897, pp. 81-88. [Return to page 31]

88. Wragge, 'A Brief Account ...' (op. cit., n. 85); W.J. Gibbs, The Origins of Australian Meteorology (Canberra, 1975), pp. 24-27. [Return to page 32]

89. Meteorology in Tasmania: Mr Wragge's Report (Launceston, 1896). [Return to page 32]

90. M. Higgins, 'Wragge's Summit Station: The Mount Kosciusko Weather Observatory, 1897-1902', Canberra Historical Journal, new series, no. 20 (September 1987), 3-15. [Return to page 32]

91. Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January 1900. [Return to page 32]

92. 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', VPP, 1905, Legislative Assembly, vol. Ill, pp. 9-10 (internal pagination). Todd's records are in two large volumes, 'Weather forecasts for S. Australia (1891-1898)', D4505/1, Australian Archives [National Archives of Australia], Adelaide. [Return to page 32]

93. Official Report of the Debates of the Australa-sian Federal Convention, Adelaide 1897, III (Sydney, 1986), 775-6. [Return to page 33]

94. CPD, XXXII, 422-551 and XXXII, 2136-2179, passim. [Return to page 33]

95. Public Record Office, Victoria, VPRS 778, Unit 1, p. 7. [Return to page 33]

96. CPD, XXXII, 423-4, and D.I. Wright, Shadow of Dispute: Aspects of Commonwealth-State Relations, 1901-1910 (Canberra, 1970), pp. 80-83. [Return to page 33]

97. Wragge: Meteorological, Geographical and Popular Scientific Gazette for the People of the Southern Hemisphere: The Official Journal of the Central Weather Bureau—Copies of vol. 1, nos. 23 (18 December 1902) to 52 (9 July 1903) in the Oxley Library, Brisbane, with earlier issues in the National Library of Australia, Canberra. [Return to page 33]

98. Gibbs, op. cit. (n. 88). [Return to page 33]

99. CPD, loc. cit., and Wright, loc. cit. (n. 96). [Return to page 33]

100. 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', op. cit. (n. 92), 14 pp. [Return to page 34]

101. ibid., p. 8-10. [Return to page 34]

102. See above, n. 92. [Return to page 34]

103. 'Interstate Astronomical and Meteorological Conference', op. cit. (n. 92), pp. 12-13. [Return to page 34]

104. ibid., pp. 13-14. [Return to page 34]

105. CPD, XXXI, 430-434. [Return to page 35]

106. R. Love, 'Science and Government in Australia, 1905-14: Geoffrey Duffield and the Foundation of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory', Historical Records of Australian Science, 6(2) (1985), 171-188; R. Bhathal and G. White, Under the Southern Cross: A Brief History of Astronomy in Australia (Sydney, 1991), p. 32. [Return to page 35]

107. We owe this insight to an unpublished Honours essay by S. Bassat, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, 1986. [Return to page 35]

108. CPD, XXXII, 2142-2146. [Return to page 35]

109. 'Report of Meteorological Conference held in Melbourne May, 1907', Commonwealth Parliamentary Papers, Session 1907-8, 2, 1203-1226 (internally paginated). [Return to page 36]

110. op. cit., n. 92, pp. 10, 14. [Return to page 37]

111. op. cit., n. 109, p. 15 (internal pagination). [Return to page 37]

112. J. Gardiner, 'Stormy Weather: A History of the Bureau of Meteorology', MSc research report, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne, 1993. [Return to page 37]

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Home, R. W. and Livingston, K. T. 1994 'Science and Technology in the Story of Australian Federation: The Case of Meteorology, 1876-1908', Historical Records of Australian Science, vol. 10, no. 2, December 1994, pp. 109-27.

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