The Birth of the Bureau

Figure 3 'Frosterley' at No. 2 Drummond Street, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology from 1908 until 1974.

On 18 January 1908, a full page article in the Melbourne Argus asserted that 'There is probably no other country in the world—not excepting even the United States of America—which is so vitally affected by its varying weather conditions as Australia', and described in detail the working of the new Bureau including the combined role of the Melbourne Office as both a national headquarters and a Divisional Office for Victoria. It noted that each morning the Melbourne Office received a total of 217 reports from across the Commonwealth as the basis for preparation of guidance forecasts for the Divisional Meteorologists in the other capitals. The centrally produced forecasts were initially not well received in distant capitals, and so began the ebb and flow of pressures for greater decentralisation of forecasting which characterised Australian meteorology through most of the twentieth century.

The Early Years

By 1919 the permanent staff of the Bureau had grown from an initial Australia-wide complement of 30 (supported by several thousand volunteer observers) to 71. These included two future Directors of the Bureau (W. S. Watt and E. W. Timcke).

The Depression years of the late 1920s and early 30s, with their severe restraint on government spending, were a difficult time for the Bureau. This was exacerbated by the lack of understanding on the part of the Public Service authorities of the need for scientific qualifications for Bureau staff, a problem which was to impair the work of the Bureau for most of the following half century (Gibbs 1982). With the loss of Edward Kidson in 1927 to become Director of the New Zealand Meteorological Office and the retirement of Hunt in 1931, the Bureau lost its scientific leadership and fell into a period of scientific stagnation.

Bureau of Meteorology