• Home
• Brief History
• The Greenwich Meridian
•  
• Greenwich (1675–1958)
• Herstmonceux (1948–1990)
• Cambridge (1990–1998)
• Outstations (1822–1971)…
  • – Chingford (1822–1924)
  • – Deal (1864–1927)
  • – Abinger (1923–1957)
  • – Bristol & Bradford on Avon    (1939–1948)
  • – Bath (1939–1949)
  • – Hartland (1955–1967)
  • – Cape of Good Hope    (1959–1971)
•  
• Administration…
  • – Funding
  • – Governance
  • – Inventories
  • – Pay
  • – Regulations
  • – Royal Warrants
•  
• Contemporary Accounts
• People
• Publications
• Science
• Technology
• Telescopes
• Chronometers
• Clocks & Time
• Board of Longitude
•  
• Libraries & Archives
• Visit
•  
• Search

People: Annie Scott Dill Maunder (née Russell)

Name	Maunder, Annie Scott Dill Maunder (née Russell)
Place of work	Greenwich
Employment dates	1 Sep 1891 – 31 Oct 1895
	Jan 1916– 28 Feb 1921
Posts	1891, Sep 1		Computer (resigned 31 Oct 1895)
	1916, Jan		Volunteer
	1919, Oct 1		Computer
	1921, Jan 1		Volunteer (RGO7/266)
Born	1868, Apr 14
Died	1947, Sep 15
Family links	Married E Walter Maunder (Assistant) in 1895
Known Addresses	1891–1895		16 The Circus, Greenwich (now 16 Gloucester Circus)
	1896–1900		18 Walerand Road, Lewisham
	1900–1906		86 Tyrwhitt Road, Brockley
	1908–1911		69 Tyrwhitt Road, Brockley
	1911		38 Crooms Hill
	1913–1926		8 Maze Hill (now 38 Maze Hill)

 

---

 

By 1888, the Astronomer Royal, William Christie, had been in office for seven years and overseen a considerable expansion in the number of telescopes both deployed and planned. But the number of staff both permanent and temporary had remained essentially unchanged. Unable to secure funding for additional assistants, Christie did manage to secure an increase in the budget for temporary computers.

Extra computers were all very well, but what Christie really wanted was more assistants. To this end, he therefore made the decision to experiment with employing ‘Lady Computers’. Only women who had graduated at a University Ladies’ College were considered. Four such assistants were taken on in 1890: a Miss Clemes, together with Miss Rix and Miss Furniss from Newnham College Cambridge and Miss Everett from Girton College Cambridge. All four began work on 14 April (RGO7/29). Clemes appears to have left very quickly and Furniss who resigned in 1891 was replaced by Annie Russell (RGO7/29), a contemporary of Everett’s at Girton. Although older and considerably better educated than the Boy Computers, their pay and conditions were the same. But unlike the boys who were generally still living with their parents, the Lady computers had to find and pay for their own accommodation. Like the other women, Russell was assigned to the Astrographic Department. A regular programme of taking photographic plates for the catalogue commenced in December 1891 and experimental measures of some of the photographs in 1893. In the meantime, the women were used from time to time to measure some of the solar plates. The earliest published Measures of position and areas of sun spots and faculae made by Russell (AR) dates from 4 September 1892. Although Everett, Rix and Russell all measured solar plates in 1892, only Russell is recorded as having measured them in 1893, 1894 and 1895. At some point, Russell was tasked with taking the solar photographs as well. In July 1894, she was assigned exclusively to Maunder and the Heliographic Department, though she continued to be scheduled to observe with the Astrographic Telescope until 5 July 1895.

Christie’s enthusiasm for employing women computers did not last long. Rix resigned her post in 1892 on health grounds, Everett secured a position at the Observatory in Potsdam in 1895 and Russell resigned a few weeks later on 31 October. Two months later, she married Walter Maunder, who was not only 17 years her senior, but also a widower with five surviving children. At the time of the marriage, which took place on 28 December at St Mark’s Presbyterian Church, Greenwich, their ages were approximately 7, 11, 15, 17 and 18. Despite resigning from the Observatory, Annie still managed to have a successful career as an astronomer. As well as being a member of the BAA, she was for many years the editor of its journal. She accompanied Walter on five total solar eclipse expeditions, the first of which took place in Norway in 1896. She was also a published author. Her best known publications is probably The Heavens and their story, which she and Walter wrote together.

Many modern commentators speak of Christie’s social innovation. But in truth, the employment of the Lady Computers was exploitative and little more than a stop-gap measure. By the time Russell resigned, the problem of insufficient numbers of established staff was about to be resolved and no more ladies were appointed. Indeed, those making enquiries were told ‘ladies are no longer employed at the Royal Observatory’. The next time women were employed at the Observatory, was again as Computers, and again out of necessity. But this time it was because of the staffing shortages caused by the First World War. Although Walter had retired in 1913, both he and Annie returned to the Observatory on a voluntary basis in January 1916 to work in the solar department. Although Walter was temporarily reinstated into his former post in April that year, it was only around the time that he retired for a second time on 30 September 1919 that Annie was formally reinstated as a Computer. She resigned in 1920. In the meantime, following a change to the Royal Astronomical Society’s Charter in 1915, she was election as a fellow in 1916. This time around her application was successful.

The above account of Russell has been deliberately kept brief. Much more about her role and those of the other women at Greenwich together with her election to Fellowship of the Royal Astronomical Society (after an initial rejection in 1892) can be read on this page on the website Christie’s ‘Lady Computers’ – the Astrographic pioneers of Greenwich.

Between 1887 and 1895 Walter had lived in a newly built house, Hyde House, in Ulundi Road on the east side of Greenwich Park in close proximity to several of the other Greenwich Assistants, Lewis, Hollis and Crommelin, who all lived in the same road. Following his marriage to Annie, he moved the family about as far away as possible (given the need to be close to his work) to Walerand Road on the Lewisham side of Blackheath well away from the homes of any other staff member. As well as removing themselves from the daily scrutiny of the Observatory staff the Maunders were also able to use a different railway line when travelling up to London. Following two futher moves to houses in Brockley, the Maunders eventually returned to the vicinity of Greenwich Park in about 1911.

 

Obituaries and further reading

Obituary: Maunder, Annie Scott Dill. MA Evershed, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 108, pp.48–9 (1948)

Obituary: Mrs. Walter Maunder. MA Evershed. Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Vol. 57, p.238 (1947)

Christie’s ‘Lady Computers’ – the Astrographic pioneers of Greenwich

Lady Computers at Greenwich in the Early 1890s. MT Brück, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.83– 95 (1995)

Alice Everett and Annie Russell Maunder torch bearing women astronomers. MT Brück, Irish Astronomical Journal, Vol. 21(3/4), pp.281–88 (1994)

The Family Background of Annie S. D. Maunder (née Russell). MT Brück, MT. & S Grew, Irish Astronomical Journal, 1996, 23(1), 55

Women Astronomers in Britain, 1780-1930. Kidwell.P. (1984)

Obligatory amateurs: Annie Maunder (1868–1947) and British women astronomers at the dawn of professional astronomy. M.B. Ogilvie (2000)