Elizabeth Martha Beckley

Elizabeth Martha Beckley (c.1846-6 August 1927) was a pioneering British astronomical photographer.

She was the daughter of Robert Beckley, a mechanical engineer based at Kew Observatory, who developed the Beckley rain gauge and the Robinson-Beckley anemometer with Thomas Romney Robinson.

Beckley worked at Kew Observatory from 1854 while still a young girl, where she was one of the first women to work at an astronomical observatory. She photographed the sun in the 1860s and 1870s using a photoheliograph.

Beckley married fellow Kew Observatory employee George Mathews Whipple (15 September 1842-8 February 1893) in 1870. They had five sons. The eldest was Robert Whipple, who was a scientific instrument collector, and founded the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge. While another was Francis Whipple, who was superintendent at Kew Observatory from 1925 to 1939.