Getting In Touch With Our History

By Zoé Fraussen

In 1896, after hiding the funding for a new Perth Observatory in the plan for the Perth Mint, Sir John Forrest invited William E. Cooke to become the first Government Astronomer of the Perth Observatory. This was the beginning of Cooke’s illustrious career at the Observatory. During his 16 years as Government Astronomer, Cooke worked as an astronomer, surveyor, meteorologist, seismologist, educator, journalist, and more. He was also a prolific inventor and has been credited with around 100 different patents.

This is where our story begins. POVG Heritage volunteer Robin House was tasked with trying to find the supposed over 100 patents that Cooke made. This seemingly innocuous task would end up taking Robin on a journey through Perth, Canberra, and the British Library, through patents for curtain rods and car hookers, and end up bringing descendants and artifacts together across Australia.

The only patent on record for W. E. Cooke was for an improvement of the astronomical clock, but sources had cited him with over 100 inventions and patents. Finding out that Perth didn’t hold patent records Robin contacted the Canberra Department to see if they had any luck. With helpful and enthusiastic staff also becoming interested in her research Robin was passed from contact to contact attempting to find the information she wanted. The British Library ended up having the biggest hit of W. E. Cooke patents sending Robin 19 pages of inventions. Unfortunately, as Robin was to discover, W. E. Cooke was not a very rare name and most of these patents were not the Government Astronomer we were looking for.

After a long search, a contact in Canberra came back with 4 patents given to the correct W. E. Cooke for the correct dates, but unfortunately, they were duplicates of the original patent for different countries. Another dead end. It seemed as though there would only ever be one patent found for Cooke. However, we do know that Cooke was a great inventor, but we may have to

Along the way, while Robin had no luck with finding the patents, she did find something arguably better. Robin got in contact with Cooke’s relatives and through their generosity was offered a collection of artifacts, notes, and letters from Cooke to add to the Perth Observatory collection. Chief among these are the original Cooke Sunclock and a portrait of W. E. Cooke done by his grandson, 3-time Archibald prize winner, Clifton Pugh. These beautiful artifacts will be on display in the Observatory Museum.

To finish off this remarkable journey the Observatory held a W. E. Cooke morning tea on Tuesday 14th of June. In attendance was Deb Wild, a granddaughter of Cooke who traveled from Sydney, and Gwen Digby, whose late husband was Cooke’s grandson, who video called in from Brisbane. The morning tea was a lovely event, with talks from Robin about her journey, a look into the life of W. E. Cooke and his accomplishments from Dr Craig Bowers, and a tour of our museum, newly filled with a Cooke-based exhibition featuring the new donations from the Cooke family.

It was amazing to see how one man and his passion for the observatory, education, and his family led to the Observatory we know and love today.

Banner Image Credit: Matt Woods

Sir William Ernest Cooke. Image Credits: Perth Observatory