Elizabeth Brown (1830-1899), solar astronomer
Abstract
Were it not for the fact that she was a woman, Elizabeth Brown might well be thought of as a fairly typical nineteenth-century British amateur astronomer. She has a place, although a relatively modest one, in the distinguished group of people who, with their own fortunes, carried out much of the astronomical research being done in the country at a time before extensive government support was forthcoming for the work.1 Her career in fact follows a pattern common to several of the nineteenth-century men astronomers in that her full productive period came only after she was freed from her primary responsibilities; she did not have to amass the necessary financial resources as did many of the men,2 but she had the time-consuming responsibility, not unusual for a Victorian woman, of caring for a parent through a lengthy old age. Only after her father died at the age of ninety-one, did Elizabeth, then in her early fifties, begin her sixteen years of remarkable public activity in astronomy.
- Publication:
-
Journal of the British Astronomical Association
- Pub Date:
- August 1998
- Bibcode:
- 1998JBAA..108..193C
- Keywords:
-
- BIOGRAPHY: BROWN;
- E.;
- HISTORICAL: BRITISH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION