Georg von Neumayer

Georg von Neumayer (1826-1909), scientist, gained his PhD in Munich in 1849, his studies coinciding with a surge in scientific interest in terrestrial magnetism. Having sailed to South America and returned to Hamburg, where he held a chair in physics, he sailed as a crewmember to Sydney in 1852. For two years he worked as a miner in Bendigo, on coastal ships and as a researcher at the Hobart Observatory. Upon return to Germany, he persuaded King Maximilian to equip him for the establishment of an observatory in Melbourne. He arrived in January 1857, and by June had presented a plan to set up an observatory in the Botanic Gardens. Instead, assisted by a gift of £500 from the German community, he was installed at Flagstaff Gardens as the Government Meteorologist. From 1857 onwards Neumayer was on the Exploration Committee of the Royal Society of Victoria; the doomed William Wills was his junior at the Observatory. For the next few years he took on more and more magnetic, meteorological and navigational research, completing a mammoth magnetic survey of Victoria almost single-handedly between 1858 and 1864, accompanying Burke and Wills from Swan Hill to Bilbarka on the Darling in 1860. In 1862 he moved his operation to the Botanic Gardens, remaining there until his return to Germany in 1864. Having contributed keenly and expertly to the scientific development of the colonies, he became hydrographer to the German Admiralty and later Director of the Hamburg Oceanic Observatory.