Rossbank Observatory, by Simpkinson de Wesselow, 1840s (W.L.
Crowther Library, SLT) Meteorological recordings were made at
Hobart Town and Macquarie Harbour as early as 1822. The Royal
Society of London approached the British Government in 1836 for
assistance in establishing observatories at Cape of Good Hope,
St Helena and Hobart. The first fully equipped official
meteorological station, named Rossbank Observatory, was
established in Hobart in 1840. The simultaneous establishment of
these stations represented the beginning of meteorology on a
worldwide basis within the British Empire. Many shipwrecks led
to the Tasmanian colonial government commencing, in 1871,
meteorological observations at lighthouses and other coastal
stations and sponsoring a Meteorological Department from 1882,
located at Anglesea Barracks. (The original observing site to
the east of the Barracks is still in use as the official Hobart
site.) Following federation, the commonwealth parliament passed
the Meteorology Act (1906), and the Com