Person    | Male  Born 15/11/1738  Died 25/8/1822

William Herschel

Categories: Science

Countries: Germany

Frederick William Herschel was a German-British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel.

Born Hanover. Originally a musician he immigrated to Britain in 1757 aged nineteen. Became interested in astronomy in 1773 and constructed his first large telescope in 1774. Working in Bath he discovered the planet Uranus in March 1781, though he thought it was a comet.  King George III funded Herschel to build a 40ft Newtonian reflector telescope, completed in 1789 at his home in Slough.

Died Slough.

Source: Wikipedia.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
William Herschel

Commemorated ati

RO - 12 - Herschel

1738 Herschel 1822

Read More

Other Subjects

Oliver Heaviside

Oliver Heaviside

Born in Camden Town. Aged 12 the family could no longer afford to send him to school so he continued studying on his own. Thus he was largely self-taught, no secondary education or university. In ...

Person, Science, Denmark

1 memorial
Alexander R. Stokes

Alexander R. Stokes

Worked on DNA X-ray diffraction studies 1953 at King's College London with Franklin, Gosling, Wilkins and Wilson. Born Macclesfield.

Person, Science

2 memorials
William Shipley

William Shipley

Drawing master, social reformer and inventor. Wikipedia's page differs significantly from the Oxford Dictionary of National Bigraphy. They agree that he was born in Kent and trained as a painter. H...

Person, Art, Science

1 memorial
Sir Norman Lockyer

Sir Norman Lockyer

Astronomer and journal editor, born at Rugby. In 1865 Lockyer and his family moved to a house (no longer extant) near Swiss Cottage. Here, using a special spectroscope to examine the sun, he discov...

Person, Science

1 memorial
Sir Frederick Hopkins

Sir Frederick Hopkins

Biochemist. Born Frederick Gowland Hopkins at 16 Marine Parade, Eastbourne. He studied at Guy's Hospital, where he received the University of London gold medal. In 1897 he became the first lecturer...

Person, Science

2 memorials