Sir John Frederick William Herschel

Her nephew John, born in 1792, grew up to become Sir John Herschel , an astronomer perhaps as famous as his father (let alone his aunt). She helped him by recording the first sweeps that...

ES 's circle of friends included Sir William Grove (inventor of the Grove battery), scientist Mary Somerville , lawyer and Royal Society president Lord Wrottesley , astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy , Sir John Herschel

AA was a close friend of Sir John Herschel (another photographic pioneer) and his daughters. The idea of a female scientist was not strange to this family, since Sir John was the nephew of the...

In London the Somervilles enjoyed participating in a rich scientific community: Mary's time there was much happier than during her first marriage. She attended many lectures at the Royal Institution , and took lessons in...

AA also continued into her forties her self-education in the new subject of photography. In 1841 she was experimenting with camera work as developed by William Henry Fox Talbot in the form of photograms produced...

She had begun working on this, at John 's behest, about a year after her return to Hanover. In August 1823 it was still at the planning stage. A year later she was hard at work.

As early as May 1827 her nephew John read her autobiographical account of her discovery years, and responded that she underestimated her own part in her joint enterprise with William.

The Athenæum declared MS 's On the Connexion of the Physical Scienceswith the exception of Sir John Herschel 's treatises, the most valuable and most pleasing work of science that has been published within the century.

Astronomical observation being impossible in the city, CH worked at her papers from the past, this time, at her nephew John 's request, compiling her catalogue of nebulae. When her nephew set out for the...

After conducting a set of experiments on the effect of sunlight on vegetable juices, MS sent a report of her method and results to John Herschel , who presented her findings to the Royal Society .

She started with Henry Colburn . After Anne and Emily had arranged with Newby for publication of their first novels, she approached a seventh publisher, Smith, Elder, and Co. .

In the beginning CH 's reputation was usually judged more as that of a woman and a sister than as that of a scientist. Frances Burney 's admiration and delight was directed at her as...

Astronomer Sir John Herschel reviewed Mechanism of the Heavens, by MS , in the Quarterly Review.

After conducting a series of trials which involved focussing sunlight on a steel needle, MS concluded (incorrectly) that the violet rays of the solar spectrum appeared to produce a magnetising effect. The paper was timely...

MS was a considerable time employed in writing this book, and sent it to Brougham for appraisal with some anxiety. Brougham deemed it too advanced to be accessible to his intended public readership, and...