The Adelaide Observatory and 140 Years of Weather
Observations at West Terrace

Gennaro (Gene) Vecchio
South Australian Regional Office
Bureau of Meteorology
Last Updated: 13 Nov 2004

Contents

• Introduction
• Observatory Site location and description
• Sir Charles Todd and his work at the Observatory
• Adelaide Observatory and the advent of Federation - The Separation of Duties
• The work of Griffiths and Dodwell
• Weather Bureau Operations at West Terrace since Federation
• Figures
• Acknowledgments
• References

Introduction

The Adelaide Observatory was built for Sir Charles Todd (1826-1910), the first SA Government Astronomer and completed in 1860. It stood on the site presently occupied by the Adelaide High School on West Terrace; the latter was first opened in Grote Street in 1908 and moved to West Terrace in 1952. For many years, until its demolition in the late 1940s, the Observatory was also the residence of the SA Government Astronomers. About 50 metres north of the Observatory, on the corner of Glover Avenue, stood the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology Building, built in 1940 and demolished in 1978. From this location, known as Adelaide - West Terrace (station number 023000), weather observations were taken until 31 December 1978, a period of 140 years, making it one of the world's longest continuous weather records. In addition to weather observations, astronomical measurements were taken for time keeping, geodetic and star cataloguing purposes until the telescopes were transferred to Adelaide University North Terrace Campus in the late 1940s. Fig 1 shows a general view of the Observatory site.

Figure 1. General view of the Adelaide Observatory looking south along West Terrace, taken about 1940 from the top of the then newly built Bureau of Meteorology Tower. It shows the Cooke telescope hutch, the Observatory Tower and the Astronomer's Residence.

A general site plan circa 1940 shown in Fig 2 gives the position of the various instruments on the four-acre allotment. Note that except for the small quarter-acre allotment in the NE corner, which was Commonwealth property, the whole area was SA Government property.

Observatory Site location and description

The Adelaide Observatory building was built on a four-acre allotment, which by the Municipal Act of 1849 had been reserved by the government for army barracks and was therefore excluded from control of the Adelaide City Corporation. Prior to this, the area had been used as part of an immigrant reception centre, known as Emigration Square. This consisted of a number of wooden buildings constructed to provide shelter for newly arrived immigrants and their families whose passage had been paid from the land fund. The Colonial Infirmary and Dispensary was located within this precinct from December 1839 until January 1841, when the Adelaide Hospital was opened on North Terrace. In the 1861 Land Use Amending Act, the site was again excluded from the control of the Corporation but was instead listed as a reserve for an Observatory (Dinning, 1952).

Figure 2. Site Plan (c1940) of the Adelaide Observatory

The location is close to the site originally chosen by Col William Light (1786-1839) for his surveyor's depot. He selected this area on a slight rise because it offered unimpeded distant views to the coast from Glenelg to Port Adelaide.

Light was the first to start weather observations from here. Unfortunately, most of Light's journals, diaries, letters, sketches and paintings were lost in January 1839, when his surveyors hut was accidentally burned down (Vecchio, 1972). Soon afterwards, Light's health deteriorated and he died of tuberculosis on October 5, 1839, aged 53.

Following his death, meteorological observations were continued by George Kingston, later Sir George Strickland Kingston (1807-1880), who took daily weather observations until 1879 at his town acre block at the corner of West Terrace and Grote Street about 300 to 400 metres south of the Observatory on West Terrace. A comparison analysis of the rainfall readings for the data collected from the two nearby sites between 1860-1879 showed that the mean annual difference for these two sites was only 6.5mm, with Kingston's figures being the greater (Corbett, 1970). Figure 3 shows the observatory building in the late 1930s and in Figure 4 its demolition a decade later.

Sir Charles Todd and his work at the Observatory

On February 10, 1855 the colonial government of SA appointed the Londoner Charles Todd to the dual post of Superintendent of Telegraphs and Government Astronomer. A weather enthusiast, Todd on his arrival in South Australia on November 4, 1855 immediately commenced meteorological observations, initially at his private house in North Adelaide, then at Government House grounds and finally to the Adelaide Observatory on its completion in 1860.

A visionary, Todd seized the opportunity of the telegraph as a fast mean of communications. He proposed a plan to the SA Government for providing a weather service based on timely reports from the telegraphic and postal network. Immensely successful, Todd was to set up, direct and supply weather services to South Australians for the next half a century until 1906, when he retired.

Todd instructed his Post Office staff in South Australia and the Territory to make regular weather observations and to post these daily to the Adelaide PMG where he systematically collected the information and arranged for the interchange of data with other Australian colonies and New Zealand. As Post Master General, Todd constructed the famous Adelaide to Darwin overland telegraph, which linked Australia with Europe through Batavia (now Djakarta). In 1877, Todd extended the Telegraph from Port Augusta to Eucla on the WA border, which in 1861, had been extended from 132E to 129E.

Todd pioneered the publications in newspapers of weather maps that from 1882 onwards were regularly published in the local and interstate newspapers. His forecasting method consisted in writing out each forecast independent of his assistant Richard Fletcher Griffiths (1857-1930) who would at the same time write his own forecast. The two gentlemen would then compare notes and after a reasoned discussion would publish the result. Todd verified his forecasts, and at the 1893 Adelaide conference he was able to claim that in the previous four years his daily forecasts were accurate on 73 percent of occassions, partly correct for 20 percent, and wholly wrong for 7 percent (Vecchio, 2002).

Another of Todd's assistants was Adelaide born William Ernest Cooke (1863-1947). Cooke joined the Adelaide Observatory in 1883, after completing a BA from the Adelaide University and was at the observatory until 1896 when he transferred to Perth to become, on Todd's recommendation, Western Australia's first government astronomer-meteorologist. In 1912 Cooke moved to Sydney to take up both the posts of New South Wales government astronomer and Professor of Astronomy, University of Sydney until the 1930s.

Todd published journals, presented papers to scientific organizations and submitted annual reports to the State Government. He held leading positions in a number of learned societies, schools and public institutions and was always ready to assist and advise. He was a foundation member and inaugural president of the Astronomical Society of South Australia (founded in 1892) and continued to be elected president until his death in 1910.

The principal work of Sir Charles Todd as a Government Astronomer was the observation of the meridian passage of stars for both cataloguing purposes and for time keeping (Dodwell, 1958). Todd acquired two main telescopes. One of these was a Cooke Equatorial Telescope, which was imported from England in 1874 and used for general astronomical work. The other was a Transit Circle telescope which once fixed marked the Standard Point for all South Australian Geodetic surveys. Its position at latitude 138°34'58"E, and latitude 34°55'38"S was used as benchmark for fixing the state boundaries.

Adelaide Observatory and the advent of Federation - The Separation of Duties

Before Federation, each of the colonies had its own meteorological office. At the time, all colonial meteorologists had additional functions other than observing the weather. In fact, most served, as Government Astronomers and Todd was, in addition, Post Master General for South Australia and the Northern Territory, which from 1865 to 1913 was under SA Government administration.

With the advent of Federation, Meteorology became a Commonwealth responsibility and the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology was created by Act of Parliament in 1906, with a Head Office in Melbourne and a Divisional Office in each of the States. Henry Ambrose Hunt (1866-1946) was appointed first Commonwealth Meteorologist in 1907 and services to the public began on January 1, 1908. It was at this time that in Australia there was a formal separation of duties between Astronomy and Meteorology. This led to the growth of Meteorology as a service to mariners, aviators, the military, farmers and the public.

After a fact-finding visit to the various colonial meteorological offices, Hunt wrote a report in 1907 on the state of Meteorology in each of the regions. Reporting on South Australia, the English born Hunt who had migrated to Australia in 1884, listed the names of the staff members at the Adelaide Observatory and their annual salaries. These were R F Griffiths (OIC), £330; G F Dodwell, £150; S W Chettle, £140; E Bromley, £120; G Gray £120 and J Kelly £102 (Hunt, 1907). Presumably the latter was the gardener mentioned by Shinkfield (1970). Incidentally, Hunt also noted that the recently retired Sir Charles Todd had been on an annual salary of £500. He further noted that on site instruments were good and that the building boasted "a very complete and extensive library" (Hunt, 1907). He argued for the Federal government to buy the premises in order to secure the climatic integrity of the data.

The federal government however, did not purchase the building but it did appropriate an allotment comprising about ¼ acre in the far northeast corner of the site on which the Bureau of Meteorology Building was built in 1940. The Bureau of Meteorology continued its operations at West Terrace until March 1977 when it moved to new premises at Kent Town. Meteorological Observations however, continued at West Terrace until December 1978, completing some 140 years of Meteorological Observations there.

The work of Griffiths and Dodwell

On the retirement of Sir Charles Todd, R. Fletcher Griffiths (fig 5) continued the Time Keeping Service for South Australia. Todd officially retired on December 31, 1906 but he had been unwell for some time and Griffiths had been acting in his stead for a few months prior to Todd's official retirement.

Figure 3. The Adelaide observatory circa 1940.	Figure 4. The demolition of the Adelaide Observatory - late 1940s.

Griffiths was born in Manchester, England in 1857, the son of Mr Samuel Griffiths. He came to Victoria with his parents in 1861, and was educated at Hawthorn Grammar School. In 1880 he was appointed an assistant at the Adelaide Observatory and was promoted to chief meteorologist two years later. On the transfer of Cooke to Western Australia in 1896, Griffiths became Chief Assistant Astronomer. Along with Todd they were founding members of the Astronomical Society of South Australia. He married Emma Greayer in 1899. She also was a member of the Society and they had two boys and two girls (Waters, 1996). In 1907 he was appointed Acting State Meteorologist but latter that same year transferred to the new Bureau of Meteorology Head Office in Melbourne to become an Assistant Commonwealth Meteorologist. As a member of the forecasting team his chief function was the daily preparation of weather forecasts for the transmission to the various states under the general supervision of Hunt - a position which he retained until his retirement in 1925 (Hogan, 1986).

In South Australia, George Frederick Dodwell (1879-1963) next filled the position of Meteorologist-Astronomer. Dodwell (fig 6) was English born and joined the Adelaide Observatory as an Assistant Astronomer in 1899. He gained a BA from the University of Adelaide in 1905. In June 1909, astronomy and meteorological duties were officially separated in Australia. In South Australia, the duties of Divisional Meteorologist were assigned to Edward (Ward) Bromley (1882-1952) who became a federal employee while Dodwell continued as Government Astronomer on the state payroll until October 31, 1952. Bromley was born in Magill, SA and was a graduate of the Adelaide University. He joined the Observatory in 1906.

Figure 5. R. Fletcher Griffiths working at the Observatory (c1907).

With the separation of duties, Dodwell who had been appointed to the Observatory on March 1st 1899 as a SA Government employee, continued to live at the State owned Observatory and conducted his work in the Transit Room which Todd had arranged to be built in 1881 (Dodwell, 1958). This outbuilding was still standing when the Adelaide High School was opened in 1952 (see fig 7).

Meanwhile Bromley, on becoming a Commonwealth employee, continued to work in the small office that had belonged to Todd adjacent to the tower. He was to remain State Meteorologist until his retirement in 1947.

Figure 6. Government Astronomer, George F Dodwell at work at the Observatory in 1938.

Dodwell completed a magnetic survey of South Australia, which had begun under Todd. In 1921, in conjunction with other international institutions, the Adelaide Observatory contributed in the world first measurement of the earth's circumference by radiotelegraphy. Dodwell attended an international Astronomy Conference in Rome in 1922 and while in Europe, took the opportunity to visit the Greenwich Observatory.

During the 1930s economic depression, work for Government Astronomers around Australia declined and observatories were closed in Sydney and Perth. There were plans to also close the Adelaide Observatory but the advent of WWII delayed the operation and the Observatory was not closed until the late 1940s.

Figure 7. Aerial view of the Adelaide High School (December 1951). In the bottom left hand side of the photo, the small freestanding building is the Transit Room - later demolished.

All astronomical instruments were moved to the Adelaide University Grounds on North Terrace. Among them was a seismograph that had been acquired some years after the September 1902 earthquake (at the time the worst on record). The earthquake caused considerable damage in the State's populated areas (Waters, 1996). The seismograph was mounted on a massive granite slab, which was apparently left on site. Some 50 years later in 1999 construction workers at Adelaide High School disinterred this slab. It now stands (albeit side up) in the southern Car Park where the seismograph shed used to be located - see plan, fig 2.

Weather Bureau Operations at West Terrace since Federation

Bromley and his Bureau staff of six continued to use part of the Observatory until 1940, when he moved 50 metres north to the new Bureau building. The area he occupied at the Observatory was the Tower and the adjacent office area that had been built in 1873. This consisted of a room some 6.7m x 5m (20x15 feet) that was accessed through a lobby at the bottom of the Tower. Immediately behind the tower and adjacent to the office was a small room which served as office area for the OIC. This had originally been Sir Charles Todd's office and later become Bromley's office for many years. Figure 9 is a sketch plan of the office (after Shinkfield). Bromley's desk faced a window with an almost unobscured 180-degree view to the distant coast.

In the early 1920s the total Bureau staff in South Australia consisted of the State Meteorologist (Mr Bromley), his assistant Bern Newman, three clerks and a messenger. In addition there was a gardener-handyman (Mr Kelly) and a cleaning lady (Miss Ella Lynch). The latter was trained to move nothing but the dust and dirt. Except for messengers, staff numbers remained static until after the growth of the Bureau in the 1960s and 1970s.

Figure 8. Weather Office at Adelaide Observatory c1925. After Shinkfield

The work practices at the time had probably changed little from those set up under Todd in the 1890s. The staff operated from offices at the GPO and the West Terrace Observatory. At the GPO, Bureau staff worked in a small room (5m x 3.4m) which in order to facilitate the passages of hand messages had an opening to the main telegraphic room, which was occupied by the large PMG staff. It was draughty and noisy. At certain times of the day, as for instance at 12 noon, the noise level was deafening as in order to synchronise time across SA and the Northern Territory clerks would all simultaneously hit their Morse keys to announce the time check.

At the PMG, clerks collated the data and produced 9am and 3pm bulletins. At 10.30am, Mr Bromley or his deputy would walk from West Terrace to the PMG in order to verify the forecasts that were made daily in the central office in Melbourne and sent to the SA Meteorologist by telegram. These forecasts were to be used unaltered except when conditions warranted and after consultation with Head Office. While at the PMG, the State Meteorologist would also prepare press charts and weather notes and if necessary give press interviews. Around 12:45pm, having finished at the PMG, Bromley would then walk back to West Terrace (Shinkfield,1970).

When Bromley retired in 1947, after 39 years of service, George William Mackey (1906-1979) succeeded him. At the time the Adelaide office was staffed 17 hours a day from 4am to 9pm. A year later, Mackey elected to transfer to Western Australia where he was to remain Regional Director until his retirement on Feb 26, 1971.

Henry Evans Banfield (1887-1974) followed Mackey in 1948, until his retirement in 1952. Extensions to the 1940 Bureau building (fig 8) were added in 1962-63, under the direction of John ("Doc") Hogan (1912-1978) who in 1953 had succeeded Banfield as regional director. He was to be SA regional Director until his retirement in 1972. Just before his retirement, in 1971, after calling a public meeting, Doc Hogan organized a steering committee, which established the Australian Meteorological Association (AmetA).

Figure 9. The Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology building in the 1950s.	Figure 10. The demolition of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology building in May 1978.

The West Terrace site was too small for the increased demands for meteorological services in the late 1960s and the corresponding increase in staff. In order to ease the crowding, the Special Services unit was temporarily located in City Cross and later at Western Offices in Currie St, which already housed the Forecasting and Warning Section and the Information Section.

Regional director Allan Brunt (1920-), who had succeeded Hogan in 1972, chose the site for the present SA Regional Office building at Kent Town. By now, the Bureau had grown into a statewide organization of around 100 staffers, two thirds of which worked in the Adelaide Office. Brunt retired in 1980 after 38 years of service in the Bureau and was succeeded by Lynn Mitchell (1927-) who in turn was succeeded by Graeme W Furler (1941- ) who retired on March 26, 2002.

Figures

• Figure 1. General View of the Adelaide Observatory looking south along West Terrace, taken about 1940 showing the Cooke telescope hutch, the Observatory Tower and the Astronomers Residence. Photo taken from the top of the then newly built Bureau of Meteorology Tower.
• Figure 2. Site Plan (c1940) of the Adelaide Observatory.
• Figure 3. The Adelaide observatory circa 1940s.
• Figure 4. The demolition of the Adelaide Observatory - late 1940s.
• Figure 5. R. Fletcher Griffiths working at the Observatory (c1907).
• Figure 6. Government Astronomer, George F Dodwell at work at the Observatory in 1938.
• Figure 7. Aerial view of the Adelaide High School (December 1951). In the bottom left hand side of the photo, the small freestanding building is Transit Room - later demolished.
• Figure 8. Weather Office at Adelaide Observatory c1925. After Shinkfield.
• Figure 9. The Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology building in the 1950s.
• Figure 10. The demolition of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology building in May 1978.

Acknowledgments

References

• ASSA, 2002 Astronomical Society of South Australia, http://www.assa.org.au/
• Corbett, J 1970 History of Adelaide West Terrace Instrument Site. Bureau of meteorology, South Australian Regional Office. Unpublished.
• Dinning, AE 1952 Opening address of the Adelaide Boys High School
• Dodwell, GF (1958) State Government Observatory, West Terrace 1860-1952
• Hogan, J 1986 Notes by John Hogan (1896-1970). Metarch Paper 2, Mar 1986
• Hunt, 1907 Report of Commonwealth Meteorologist on Inspection of State Meteorological Services (p 15, 16)
• Shinkfield, R. C. 1970? Recollections while being employed at the Adelaide Weather Bureau and Parafield Aerodrome from 1921 to 1939 Undated and unpublished article in the SARO.
• Vecchio, G 2002 A History of Meteorology in South Australia to 2001 http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/sa/inside/history/
• Waters, 1996 A Brief History of the Astronomical Society of SA http://www.assa.org.au/info/history/