John Herschel Biography

John Herschel was born in Slough, Berkshire. John’s parents were Mary Baldwin and the infamous William Herschel. John briefly studied at Eton College, then attended St. Johns College in Cambridge. He graduated from St. Johns College as senior wrangler in 1813. During his time in St. Johns he befriended some famous astronomers such as Charles Babbage and George Peacock. In 1816, John Herschel became interested in astronomy. He built a reflecting telescope that included a mirror. The telescope was Eighteen inches in diameter and a twenty foot diameter. This is a very large telescope to be built singlehandedly. From 1821 till 1823, John Herschel worked with James South to re-examine the double stars that his father William Herschel had catalogued. This was his first large undertaking and he was very fortunate to have James South to assist him. South was able to afford all the expensive equipment needed for the observations. Being able to observe and record these double stars, one can find out more about gravitational forces working within the universe. The published their findings in the Philosophical Transactions. After publishing their findings, James South and John Herschel earned them a gold Medal in 1824 from the Royal Astronomical Society. And in 1825 they won the Lelande Prize from the Paris academy of Sciences.

            In 1823 he designed a practical concept for contact lenses. Then he wrote a book titled A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy which was published in the beginning of 1831, which was part of Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet encyclopedia. The purpose behind Dionysus cabinet encyclopedia was to show methods of scientific investigation with a relationship between observation and theorizing. In his book he described that nature was governed by laws that were able to be figured out mathematically. Instead he proposed to use inductive reasoning to find the natural philosophy of nature. Being able to use inductive reasoning would hopefully provide a single unifying explanation for the phenomenon. This theory was widely popularized and inspired Charles Darwin to study the works of nature. In 1864 John Herschel put together his observations into a book called “General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters”. This was an added part to his father William Herschel book called “Catalogue of Nebulae”. He added his own observations and finished that of his fathers.

            In November 1833 John Herschel and his wif e boarded the S.S. Mountstuart Elphinstone headed to South Africa. The objective of the trip was to catalogue stars, nebulas, and much more. This was meant to build on the skies that were observed and mapped by his father. He wanted to complete what his father had started. He set up a 21 ft telescope in Cape Town. He consulted and made his observations with Thomas Maclear, since they stayed and ate together the two families became very good friends. They were able to catalogue 68,948 stars along with many nebulae and double stars. He was able to observe the passage of Halley’s Comet. And the satellites orbiting around Saturn.  He was able to describe in detail, the Magellanic cloud and the constellation Orion. He was able to take basic solar radiation reading from a device he invented. He also described sunspot activities in great detail. These things inspired people to make the sun an important element of Astrophysics.

            John Herschel was born into a family that already had a legacy with the stars. His father William Herschel was a well-known astronomer and John wanted to fill in his shoes. John wanted to complete the work of his father by cataloguing stars and making new scientific discoveries. John Herschel finished writing a book in 1849 named Outlines of Astronomy. This book was very popular and was even translated to Arabic and Chinese.. In 1824-1827 John served as the secretary of the Royal Society. In 1831 he was knighted. He was made Baronet in 1838. In 1850 John Herschel was appointed master of the mint. The stress however casued a nervous breakdown and he needed to resign in 1856. He sent the remainder of his days observing and cataloguing stars.  In 2000 an asteroid was named after him and his father. The asteroid was called Herschel. 

  1867 Photograph of John Herschel