Overlooked worker was pioneering female astronomer, researchers say

For more than a century, astronomers assumed she had simply "computed" complex calculations for the men who had exclusive use of Cambridge Observatory telescopes.

- Donna Ferguson

But researchers now say Annie Walker - a Victorian woman who began working at the observatory in 1879, when she was only 15 - observed thousands of stars herself.

Previously overlooked evidence indicates Walker was the first British professional female astronomer who was paid a living wage by an observatory in the UK.

But, unlike the celebrated German astronomer Caroline Herschel, who was granted a salary by King George III to assist her brother William as the court astronomer a century earlier, Walker's work as a trailblazing female astronomer has been neglected.

The institute of astronomy at the University of Cambridge is seeking to put this right. In April, it managed to get an asteroid - Anniewalker - named after its former employee and now it is launching a campaign to find a photograph of Walker to reassert her rightful place in scientific history.