The Natal Observatory was an astronomical observatory in the Colony of Natal (now the KwaZulu-Natal province of the Republic of South Africa) from 1882 to 1911. The most important work carried out there was a study of the motion of the moon. Founding of the observatory In 1882 David Gill, director of the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope, requested the government of Natal to establish an astronomical observatory at Durban, in anticipation of the transit of Venus on 4 December that year. Mr Robert T. Pett, third assistant at the Royal Observatory, visited Durban in June that year to expedite matters. A site for the observatory was chosen in the southwest corner of the Natal Botanic Gardens. Gill invited the British astronomer Edmund Neville Nevill (also known as Edmund Neison) to take up the post of government astronomer of Natal and director of the observatory, urging him to arrive in time to observe the transit. Nevill landed in Durban on 27 November and despite problems with the available equipment managed to observe the transit successfully. Equipment The Natal Observatory was initially equipped with a 200 mm Grubb equatorial refracting telescope donated by the Natal lawyer and politician Harry Escombe, a 75 mm Troughton & Simms transit instrument, a clock by Dent keeping sidereal time, and some precision clocks and other minor instruments. A mean time clock by Victor Kullberg was added in 1892 and a 75 mm portable equatorial refractor in 1896. In December 1883 meteorological instruments were received from England and regular meteorological observations initiated at the observatory. Instruments to measure magnetic declination arrived in 1892. Staff Nevill remained director of the observatory until it was closed in 1911, following the incorporation of Natal into the Union (now the Republic) of South Africa in 1910. He was assisted by, among others, the following persons: John Grant, human computer from November 1883 to 1885, then astronomical assistant to the end of 1886 when funds for his post ran out. Re-appointed as astronomical assistant from February 1888 to 1890. Mabel Grant (South Africa's first women's single tennis champion from 1891 to 1894), human computer from 1887 or earlier to 1890, meteorological assistant to August 1891, and (senior) astronomical assistant from 1 September 1891 to April 1903. She married Nevill in 1894. Miss B. Grant, human computer from 1887 or earlier to 1891, then meteorological assistant to September 1894. A number