Cultural Object

William Dawes' Observatory, Sydney Cove (1788 - c. 1791)

From
March 1788
Sydney Cove, New South Wales, Australia
To
c. 1791
Sydney Cove, New South Wales, Australia
Functions
Astronomy or Space Science and Observatory
Alternative Names
  • Dawes' Observatory, Port Jackson (Also known as)

Summary

William Dawes, an astronomer on the British First Fleet to the Colony of New South Wales, came with instructions from the Astronomer Royal, Dr Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811) to establish an astronomical observatory. With the help of the French, who were in Port Jackson at the time, he began work on building the observatory in March 1788. Dawes left the colony in 1791 taking with him some of the astronomical instruments on loan from the Board of Longitude. He had a back up plan that Watkin Tench 1758-1833) would take over the observatory but this did not come about as Tench also left for England in 1791. Archival research by Richard de Grijs has shown that the last mentions of the observatory were in 1796.

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Published resources

Books

Journal Articles

  • de Grijs, Richard, 'The unexpected appearance of Dawes' observatory on the "1808 Sydney Cove map"', Journal of astronomical history and heritage, 25 (1) (2022), 83-90, https://adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/2022JAHH...25...83D. Details
  • de Grijs, Richard, 'Gravitational conundrum: confusing clock-rate measurements on the "First Fleet" from England to Australia', Journal of astronomical history and heritage, 25 (4) (2022), 737-44, https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.11441. Details
  • de Grijs, Richard; and Jacob, Andrew P., 'Sydney's scientific beginnings: William Dawes' observatories in context', Journal of astronomical history and heritage, 24 (1) (2021), 41-73. Details
  • de Grijs, Richard; Jacob, Andrew P., 'Sydney's Scientific Beginnings: William Dawes' Observatories in Context', arXiv:2101.08974 [physics.hist-ph] (2021), https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2101.08974. Details

Gavan McCarthy

Created: 2 March 2026

EOAS ID: biogs/P007990b.htm

This Edition: 2026 February - 1926 Centenaries
Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - Late summer: late January to late March - season of eels
Reference: https://www.bom.gov.au/resources/indigenous-weather-knowledge/indigenous-seasonal-calendars/gariwerd-calendar#bom-anchor-list__item-kooyang-season-of-eels

Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

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The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation uses the Online Heritage Resource Manager (OHRM), a relational data curation and web publication system developed by the eScholarship Research Centre and its predecessors at the University of Melbourne 1999-2020. The OHRM has been maintained by Gavan McCarthy since 2020.

Cite this page: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P007990b.htm

For earlier editions see the Internet Archive at: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.eoas.info

"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260