[ASTRONOMY] Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. For the year MDCCCXXIX. Part III. Containing astronomical observations made at the Observatory at Parramatta ; by Charles Rumker, Esq.

London : Printed by Richard Taylor, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, 1829. Quarto (275 x 220 mm), period-style modern binding of half black calf over marbled papered boards, spine lettered in gilt; pp. v, [1 Contents], 152; astronomical tables throughout; a fine copy, with discreet stamps of the Dublin Library Society to a couple of the preliminary leaves.

These astronomical observations made at Parramatta in the late 1820s by Australia’s first Government Astronomer, Charles Rümker, were issued as a supplementary volume to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society at the expense of the New South Wales colonial government. This publication must rank as one of the very earliest – if not the first – by an Australian scientist.

The first private observatory in Australia, which was established some thirty-three years after the Dawes Observatory in Sydney, was built by Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane, the sixth governor of New South Wales, at the rear of Government House, Parramatta. The small wooden and canvas building was constructed around two sandstone piers, and was completed in March 1822. Astronomical observations at Parramatta were initially carried out by two astronomers whom Brisbane had brought out with him from England, German-born Christian Carl Ludwig Rümker (1788-1862) and James Dunlop (1793-1848). Rivalry between these two scientists led in June 1823 to Rümker’s retirement to his own property near Picton, where he continued to carry out observations of the night sky. After a three-year hiatus, however, Alexander McLeay was instrumental in luring Rümker back to Parramatta, where he worked at the observatory from May 1826 to October 1829. In September 1826 he discovered a new comet in the constellation of Orion; and in December 1827 he was placed in charge of the observatory by the new Governor, (Sir) Ralph Darling, with the official title of Government Astronomer – the first such in Australia. In January 1829 Rümker sailed for London in order to obtain new instruments for the Parramatta observatory and also to formally request the Royal Society to publish his Astronomical Observations Made at the Observatory at Parramatta in New South Wales. They were duly issued later that year as a supplementary volume to the Society’s Philosophical Transactions, with the printing paid for by the Government of New South Wales. In June 1830, after a quarrel with Sir James South, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, Rümker was dismissed from British government service. He returned to Hamburg, where in 1831 he became director of the school of navigation and in 1833 also director of the Hamburg observatory.