Duffield grave, Mount Stromlo, Australia - Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com

Walter Geoffrey Duffield was born on 12 August 1879 at Gawler, South Australia.

After graduating from the University of Adelaide in 1900 with a Bachelor of Science, he won the Angas engineering scholarship and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, England, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts after two years.

Duffield then began research at the Victoria University of Manchester, which led to Doctorate of Science in 1908.

In 1910-23 Duffield was professor of physics at University College, Reading. He investigated the measurement of gravity at sea, undertaking experimental work during voyages to Australia in 1914 and 1923. He served in the Royal Flying Corps and Air Force in 1914-19.

In 1914, Duffield helped select Mount Stromlo as the site for the first solar observatory in Australia. Due to World War One, it was not until 1923 that the final decision to proceed was taken and Duffield was appointed first director of the Commonwealth Solar Observatory in January 1924.

He intended the work of the observatory to embrace studies of the sun and its variations, geophysics that might be influenced by the sun, spectroscopy of the sun and relevant laboratory sources, and southern sky astronomy.

Duffield was a chronic asthmatic and died of pneumonia on 1 August 1929 at Mount Stromlo while work was still in the preliminary stages.

Duffield was buried on a site a few hundred metres from the observatory, which has since seen many astronomers learn and research the heavens from this mountain.

A devastating bushfire destroyed most of the observatory in January 2003. The grave was also damaged and restoration has since taken place.

First Name: Walter Geoffrey Last Name: Duffield Born: 08/12/1879 Died: 08/01/1929

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   04/28/2013 Cankid visited it 07/30/2006 Everlasting visited it

View all visits/logs