Location: Woodford Academy, 90-92 Great Western Highway, Woodford NSW 2778
Country: Dharug and Gundunngurra
LGA: Blue Mountains City Council
Region: Blue Mountains
Website: nationaltrust.org.au/places/woodford-academy/
Map: Below
In December 1874, astronomers built a temporary encampment near the present-day Woodford Academy [more >>] in the City of Blue Mountains, to observe the Transit of Venus. This was the first since 1769, when Lieutenant James Cook , astronomer Charles Green, and naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander famously observed the phenomenon from Tahiti, in the Pacific Ocean.
The Australian View of Venus: astronomer Nick Lomb’s account of Australian observations of the 1874 Transit of Venus for ABC Science, published before the 2012 Transit, the last one of the 21st century:
To astronomers it was the greatest astronomical event of the century, not just because of its rarity, but because it provided an opportunity to measure the distance from the Earth to the Sun and so provide the key distance in estimating the size of the Universe as was known at the time.
The method of measurement was to time when Venus crossed the edge of the Sun as it was entering and/or when it was leaving the disc. The distance was to be obtained through calculations based on comparing times at places long way apart on the globe. More >>
Captions
Top feature image: 1874 Transit of Venus emcampment on the site of the Woodford Academy, by unknown photographer, taken from glass negative.
Gallery images
1: Woodford House 1889. A lithograph by unknown artist of what is now the Woodford Academy when it was an isolated guest house or inn on the road across the Blue Mountains. from London Illustrated News.
2: Image of the Academy site, by an unknown photographer, showing the 1874 Transit of Venus encampment, taken from glass plate negative, collodion / glass. Powerhouse Collection: https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/383274
See The Transit of Venus, Illustrated Sydney News and New South Wales Agriculturalist and Grazier, Saturday 19 December 1874, page 4 >>
For more on Woodford Academy, see https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/woodford_academy and https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/educationprograms/seriously-old-school-woodford-academy/
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Published on 3 January 2025. Last updated 23 April 2025.