Catherine Octavia Stevens

Catherine Octavia Stevens (1865-1959) was an amateur astronomer who was Director of the British Astronomical Association Meteor Section from 1905 to 1911. Her primary interest was the Sun and she made drawings of sunspots using a 3 inch refractor.

She joined the six month old British Astronomical Association on 27 May 1891. On the 1911 census she gave her occupation as Astronomer, working for the British Astronomical Association and her address was The Plain, Foxcombe Hill, Oxford., a house with an observatory at the top of Boars Hill, Oxford. She lived there from 1910 to 1956. In 1939 she gave her occupation as Meteorologist Astronomer.

Travels
Catherine Stevens travelled to see total solar eclipses from Algiers on May 28, 1900, Majorca on August 30, 1905 and Quebec on August 31, 1932. She spent a year in Shetland to study the Aurora Borealis. She travelled to New Zealand and visited the hot springs at Rotorua.

Family
She was born at the Rectory, Bradfield, Berkshire on 23 January 1865, the daughter of Thomas Stevens (1809-1888), Rector of Bradfield and founder of Bradfield College and Susanna Stevens née Marriott (c1824-1866), daughter of Rev Robert Marriott, Rector of Cotesbach, Leicestershire. Catherine Stevens died on 16 June 1959.

Her older sister, Mary Ann Stevens, married John Oldrid Scott, son of the architect George Gilbert Scott.

Obituary

 * Written by James Henry Drake.