Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet
KHThe Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes also referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent . It has not been conferred by the British Crown since the death of King William IV in 1837, when the personal union of the...
, FRS (7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871),
was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
mathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
,
astronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
,
chemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
, and experimental
photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of Mary Baldwin and astronomer
Sir Friedrich Wilhelm HerschelSir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer. Born in Hanover, Wilhelm first followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, but emigrated to Britain at age 19...
and the father of 12 children.
Herschel originated the use of the
Julian dayJulian day is used in the Julian date system of time measurement for scientific use by the astronomy community, presenting the interval of time in days and fractions of a day since January 1, 4713 BC Greenwich noon...
system in
astronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus. He made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated colour blindness and the chemical power of
ultravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
rays.
Early life and work on astronomy
Herschel was born in
SloughSlough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
,
BerkshireBerkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, and studied shortly at
Eton CollegeEton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and
St John's College, CambridgeSt John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
. He graduated as Senior wrangler in 1813. It was during his time as an undergraduate that he became friends with
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
and
George PeacockGeorge Peacock was an English mathematician.-Life:Peacock was born on 9 April 1791 at Thornton Hall, Denton, near Darlington, County Durham. His father, the Rev. Thomas Peacock, was a clergyman of the Church of England, incumbent and for 50 years curate of the parish of Denton, where he also kept...
. He took up astronomy in 1816, building a reflecting telescope with a mirror 18 inches (457.2 mm) in diameter and with a 20 feet (6.1 m) focal length. Between 1821 and 1823 he re-examined, with
James SouthSir James South was a British astronomer.He helped found the Astronomical Society of London, and it was under his name as president of the society from 1831 to 1832 that a petition was successfully submitted to obtain a royal charter in 1831, whereupon it became the Royal Astronomical...
, the double stars catalogued by his father. For this work he was presented in 1826 with the
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society-History:In the early years, more than one medal was often awarded in a year, but by 1833 only one medal was being awarded per year. This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier...
(which he won again in 1836), and with the Lalande Medal of the
French Academy of SciencesThe French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
in 1825, while in 1821 the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
bestowed upon him the
Copley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
for his mathematical contributions to their Transactions. Herschel was made a Knight of the
Royal Guelphic OrderThe Royal Guelphic Order, sometimes also referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent . It has not been conferred by the British Crown since the death of King William IV in 1837, when the personal union of the...
in 1831.
His A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy published early in 1831 as part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet cyclopædia set out methods of scientific investigation with an orderly relationship between observation and theorising. He described nature as being governed by laws which were difficult to discern or to state mathematically, and the highest aim of
natural philosophyNatural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
was understanding these laws through
inductive reasoningInductive reasoning, also known as induction or inductive logic, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates propositions that are abstractions of observations. It is commonly construed as a form of reasoning that makes generalizations based on individual instances...
, finding a single unifying explanation for a phenomenon. This became an authoritative statement with wide influence on science, particularly at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
where it inspired the student
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
with "a burning zeal" to contribute to this work.
He published a catalogue of his astronomical observations in 1864, as the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters, a compilation of his own work and that of his father's, expanding on the senior Hershel's
Catalogue of NebulaeThe Catalogue of Nebulae was first published in 1786 by William Herschel. It was eventually expanded by his son John Herschel into the General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters, and further expanded by J. L. E...
. A further complementary volume was published posthumously, as the General Catalogue of 10,300 Multiple and Double Stars.
Visit to South Africa
Declining an offer from the
Duke of SussexDuke of Sussex was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was conferred on 27 November 1801 upon The Prince Augustus Frederick, the sixth son of George III, who was created Duke of Sussex, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Arklow, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom...
that they travel to
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
on a Navy ship, Herschel and his wife paid £500 for passage on the 'S.S. Mountstuart Elphinstone', a ship of 611 tons, which departed from Portsmouth on 13 November 1833.
The voyage to South Africa was made in order to catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies. This was to be a completion as well as extension of the survey of the northern heavens undertaken initially by his father
Friedrich Wilhelm HerschelSir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer. Born in Hanover, Wilhelm first followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, but emigrated to Britain at age 19...
. He arrived in
Cape TownCape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
on 15 January 1834 and set up a private 21 ft (6.4 m) telescope at Feldhausen at
Wynberg. Amongst his other observations during this time was that of the return of
Comet HalleyHalley's Comet or Comet Halley is the best-known of the short-period comets, and is visible from Earth every 75 to 76 years. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime...
. Herschel collaborated with
Thomas MaclearSir Thomas Maclear was an Irish-born South African astronomer who became Her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope....
, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, and the two families became close friends.
However, in addition to his astronomical work, this voyage to a far corner of the British empire also gave Herschel an escape from the pressures under which he found himself in London, where he was one of the most sought-after of all British men of science. While in southern Africa, he engaged in a broad variety of scientific pursuits free from a sense of strong obligations to a larger scientific community. It was, he later recalled, probably the happiest time in his life. In an extraordinary departure from astronomy, he combined his talents with those of his wife, Margaret, and between 1834 and 1838 they produced 131 botanical illustrations of fine quality, showing the Cape flora. John Herschel used a
camera lucidaA camera lucida is an optical device used as a drawing aid by artists.The camera lucida performs an optical superimposition of the subject being viewed upon the surface upon which the artist is drawing. The artist sees both scene and drawing surface simultaneously, as in a photographic double...
to obtain accurate outlines of the specimens and left the details to his wife. Even though their portfolio had been intended as a personal record, and despite the lack of floral dissections in the paintings, their accurate rendition makes them more valuable than contemporary collections. Some 112 of the 132 known flower studies were collected and published as "Flora Herscheliana" in 1996.
As their home during their stay in the Cape, they had selected 'Feldhausen', an old estate on the south-east side of
Table MountainTable Mountain is a flat-topped mountain forming a prominent landmark overlooking the city of Cape Town in South Africa, and is featured in the flag of Cape Town and other local government insignia. It is a significant tourist attraction, with many visitors using the cableway or hiking to the top...
. Here he set up his reflector to begin his survey of the southern skies.
Intrigued by the ideas of gradual formation of landscapes set out in
Charles LyellSir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...
's Principles of Geology, he wrote to Lyell on 20 February 1836 praising the book as a work which would bring "a complete revolution in [its] subject, by altering entirely the point of view in which it must thenceforward be contemplated." and opening a way for bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others." Herschel himself thought
catastrophic extinction and renewalCatastrophism is the theory that the Earth has been affected in the past by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope. The dominant paradigm of modern geology is uniformitarianism , in which slow incremental changes, such as erosion, create the Earth's appearance...
"an inadequate conception of the Creator", and by analogy with other
intermediate causesA physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...
"the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". He prefaced his words with the couplet:
- He that on such quest would go must know not fear or failing
- To coward soul or faithless heart the search were unavailing.
Taking a gradualist view of development and referring to the evolution of language, he commented
- "Words are to the Anthropologist what rolled pebbles are to the Geologist — battered relics of past ages often containing within them indelible records capable of intelligent interpretation — and when we see what amount of change 2000 years has been able to produce in the languages of Greece & Italy or 1000 in those of Germany France & Spain we naturally begin to ask how long a period must have lapsed since the Chinese, the Hebrew, the Delaware & the Malesass [Malagasy] had a point in common with the German & Italian & each other — Time! Time! Time! — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years."
The document was circulated, and
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
incorporated extracts in his ninth and unofficial Bridgewater Treatise, which postulated laws set up by a divine programmer. When
HMS BeagleThe Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect...
called at
Cape TownCape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
, Captain
Robert FitzRoyVice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy RN achieved lasting fame as the captain of HMS Beagle during Charles Darwin's famous voyage, and as a pioneering meteorologist who made accurate weather forecasting a reality...
and the young naturalist
Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
visited Herschel on 3 June 1836. Later on, Darwin would be influenced by Herschel's writings in developing his theory advanced in
The Origin of SpeciesCharles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published on 24 November 1859, is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its full title was On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the...
. In the opening lines of that work, Darwin writes that his intent is "to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers", referring to Herschel.
Herschel returned to England in 1838, was created a
baronetThe Herschel Baronetcy, of Slough in the County of Buckingham, was a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 17 July 1838 for John Herschel, son of the famous astronomer Sir William Herschel, and a well-known astronomer in his own right...
, of Slough in the County of Buckingham, and published Results of Astronomical Observations made at the Cape of Good Hope in 1847. In this publication he proposed the names still used today for the seven then-known satellites of
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
:
MimasMimas is a moon of Saturn which was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. It is named after Mimas, a son of Gaia in Greek mythology, and is also designated Saturn I....
,
EnceladusEnceladus is the sixth-largest of the moons of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
,
TethysTethys or Saturn III is a mid-sized moon of Saturn about across. It was discovered by G. D. Cassini in 1684 and is named after titan Tethys of Greek mythology. Tethys is pronounced |Odysseus]] is about 400 km in diameter, while the largest graben—Ithaca Chasma is about 100 km wide and...
,
DioneDione is a moon of Saturn discovered by Cassini in 1684. It is named after the titan Dione of Greek mythology. It is also designated Saturn IV.- Name :...
,
RheaRhea is the second-largest moon of Saturn and the ninth largest moon in the Solar System. It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini.-Name:Rhea is named after the Titan Rhea of Greek mythology, "mother of the gods"...
,
TitanTitan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
, and
IapetusIapetus ), occasionally Japetus , is the third-largest moon of Saturn, and eleventh in the Solar System. It was discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1671...
.
In the same year, Herschel received his second Copley Medal from the Royal Society for this work. A few years later, in 1852, he proposed the names still used today for the four then-known satellites of
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
:
ArielAriel is the brightest and fourth-largest of the 27 known moons of Uranus. Ariel orbits and rotates in the equatorial plane of Uranus, which is almost perpendicular to the orbit of Uranus, and so has an extreme seasonal cycle....
,
UmbrielUmbriel is a moon of Uranus discovered on October 24, 1851, by William Lassell. It was discovered at the same time as Ariel and named after a character in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. Umbriel consists mainly of ice with a substantial fraction of rock, and may be differentiated into a...
,
TitaniaTitania is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of 1578 km. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream...
, and
OberonOberon , also designated ', is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second largest and second most massive of the Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies...
.
Photography
Herschel made numerous important contributions to photography. He made improvements in photographic processes, particularly in inventing the
cyanotypeCyanotype is a photographic printing process that gives a cyan-blue print. The process was popular in engineering circles well into the 20th century. The simple and low-cost process enabled them to produce large-scale copies of their work, referred to as blueprints...
process and variations (such as the
chrysotypeChrysotype is a photographic process invented by John Herschel in 1842. Named from the Greek for "gold", it uses colloidal gold to record images on paper....
), the precursors of the modern
blueprintA blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
process. He experimented with color reproduction, noting that rays of different parts of the spectrum tended to impart their own color to a photographic paper. He collaborated in the early 1840s with
Henry CollenHenry Collen was a miniature portrait painter to Queen Victoria and the Duchess of Kent. Later in life he turned to photography and was on the cutting edge in photography in mid-19th century in London...
, portrait painter to Queen Victoria. Herschel originally discovered the platinum process on the basis of the light sensitivity of platinum salts, later developed by
William WillisWilliam Willis Jr. is a British inventor who developed the platinum process on the basis of the light sensitivity of platinum salts, originally discovered by John Herschel....
.
Unaware that the term photography had already been coined by
Hercules FlorenceAntoine Hercule Romuald Florence was a French-Brazilian painter and inventor, known as the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, three years before Daguerre , using the matrix negative/positive, still in use...
in 1834, Herschel also coined the term in 1839. He applied the terms negative and positive to photography.
He discovered
sodium thiosulfateSodium thiosulfate , also spelled sodium thiosulphate, is a colorless crystalline compound that is more familiar as the pentahydrate, Na2S2O3•5H2O, an efflorescent, monoclinic crystalline substance also called sodium hyposulfite or “hypo.”...
to be a solvent of silver
halideA halide is a binary compound, of which one part is a halogen atom and the other part is an element or radical that is less electronegative than the halogen, to make a fluoride, chloride, bromide, iodide, or astatide compound. Many salts are halides...
s in 1819 , and informed
TalbotWilliam Henry Fox Talbot was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an...
and Daguerre of his discovery that this "hyposulphite of soda" ("hypo") could be used as a
photographic fixerPhotographic fixer is a chemical or a mix of chemicals used in the final step in the photographic processing of film or paper. The fixer stabilises the image, removing the unexposed silver halide remaining on the photographic film or photographic paper, leaving behind the reduced metallic silver...
, to "fix" pictures and make them permanent, after experimentally applying it thus in early 1839.
His ground-breaking research on the subject was read at the Royal Society in London in March 1839 and January 1840.
General
Herschel wrote many papers and articles, including entries on meteorology, physical geography and the telescope for the eighth edition of the
Encyclopædia BritannicaThe Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
. He also translated The Iliad of Homer.
He invented the
actinometerActinometers are instruments used to measure the heating power of radiation. They are used in meteorology to measure solar radiation as pyrheliometers.An actinometer is a chemical system or physical device which determines the number of...
in 1825 to measure the direct heating power of the sun's rays,
and his work with the instrument is of great importance in the early history of
photochemistryPhotochemistry, a sub-discipline of chemistry, is the study of chemical reactions that proceed with the absorption of light by atoms or molecules.. Everyday examples include photosynthesis, the degradation of plastics and the formation of vitamin D with sunlight.-Principles:Light is a type of...
.
He proposed a correction to the Gregorian calendar, making years that are multiples of 4000 not leap years, thus reducing the average length of the
calendar yearGenerally speaking, a calendar year begins on the New Year's Day of the given calendar system and ends on the day before the following New Year's Day. By convention, a calendar year consists of a natural number of days. To reconcile the calendar year with an astronomical cycle , certain years...
from 365.2425 days to 365.24225.
Although this is closer to the mean tropical year of 365.24219 days, his proposal has never been adopted because the Gregorian calendar is based on the mean time between vernal equinoxes (currently 365.2424 days).
In 1836, he was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
.
In 1835, the
New York SunThe Sun was a New York newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune...
newspaper wrote a series of satiric articles that came to be known as the
Great Moon Hoax"The Great Moon Hoax" refers to a series of six articles that were published in the New York Sun beginning on August 25, 1835, about the supposed discovery of life and even civilization on the Moon...
, with statements falsely attributed to Herschel about his supposed discoveries of animals living on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, including batlike winged humanoids.
Herschel IslandHerschel Island is an island in the Beaufort Sea , which lies off the coast of the Yukon Territories in Canada, of which it is administratively a part...
(in the
Arctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...
, north of the Yukon Territory), the village of Herschel in western Saskatchewan, Canada,
Mount HerschelMount Herschel is a conspicuous peak standing northeast of Mount Peacock and overlooking the terminus of Ironside Glacier from the south, in the Admiralty Mountains, Victoria Land, Antarctica....
(in
Antarctica) and the crater
J. HerschelJ. Herschel is large lunar crater of the variety termed a walled plain. It is located in the northern part of the Moon's surface, and so appears foreshortened when viewed from the Earth. The southeastern rim of J. Herschel forms part of the edge of the Mare Frigoris lunar mare. To the northwest is...
on the Moon are named after him. So is
Herschel Girls SchoolHerschel Girls' School is a private, boarding and day school for girls, located in Claremont, a southern suburb of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa.-History:...
in
Cape TownCape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
,
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, which commemorates his visit to the area.
Influences
- Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
- Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
- James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell of Glenlair was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. His most prominent achievement was formulating classical electromagnetic theory. This united all previously unrelated observations, experiments and equations of electricity, magnetism and optics into a consistent theory...
- Economics
- John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
- William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons was a British economist and logician.Irving Fisher described his book The Theory of Political Economy as beginning the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical...
Family
He married Margaret Brodie Stewart (1810–1884) on 3 March 1829 at Edinburgh and produced the following children:
- Caroline Emilia Mary Herschel (31 March 1830–29 Jan 1909), who married Alexander Hamilton-Gordon
General Sir Alexander Hamilton-Gordon KCB , was a Scottish soldier and Liberal Party politician.Hamilton-Gordon was the second son of Prime Minister George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, by his second marriage to Harriet, daughter of the Hon. John Douglas. Arthur Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Baron...
- Isabella Herschel (5 June 1831–1893)
- Sir William James Herschel
Sir William James Herschel, 2nd Baronet was a British officer in India who used fingerprints for identification on contracts. He was born in Slough in Buckinghamshire , a son of the astronomer, John Herschel...
, 2nd Bt. (9 January 1833–1917),
- Margaret Louisa Herschel (1834–1861), an accomplished artist
- Prof. Alexander Stewart Herschel
Professor Alexander Stewart Herschel was a British astronomer, born in Feldhausen, South Africa.He was the son of John Herschel and the grandson of William Herschel. Although much less well known than either of them, he did pioneering work in meteor spectroscopy. He also worked on identifying...
(1836–1907), FRS
- Col. John Herschel (1837–1921), FRS, FRAS, surveyor
- Maria Sophie Herschel (1839–1929)
- Amelia Herschel (1841–1926) married Sir Thomas Francis Wade
Sir Thomas Francis Wade, GCMG, KCB , was a British diplomat and Sinologist who produced a syllabary in 1859 that was later amended, extended and converted into the Wade-Giles romanization for Mandarin Chinese by Herbert Giles in 1892...
, diplomat and sinologist
- Julia Mary Herschel (1842–1933) married on 4 June 1878 to Captain (later Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
) John Fiot Lee Pearse MaclearJohn Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear was an Admiral in the Royal Navy, known for his leadership in hydrography....
- Matilda Rose Herschel (1844–1914)
- Francisca Herschel (1846–1932)
- Constance Ann Herschel (1855–20 Jun 1939)
On his death at Collingwood, his home near
HawkhurstHawkhurst is a village and civil parish in the borough of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. The parish lies to the south-east of Tunbridge Wells. Hawkhurst itself is virtually two villages...
in Kent, he was given a national funeral and buried in
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
.
Further reading
- Herschel, John. (1830). A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green and John Taylor (reissued by Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 2009; ISBN 9781108000178)
- Herschel, John. (1833). A Treatise on Astronomy. Longmans, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman and John Taylor (reissued by Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, 2009; ISBN 9781108005548)
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