16th March: Caroline Herschel

Born in 1750, Caroline Herschel was the German-born astronomer, sister of astronomer Sir William Herschel.

1. Caroline Herschel was the first woman to be paid for her work in astronomy, and the first woman in England to have an official government position, when George III started paying her an annual salary of £50 (£5,800 in today's money) for her work as assistant to her brother, William. She was also the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
2. Her full name was Caroline Lucretia Herschel, and she was born in Hanover, Germany, the eighth child of Isaac Herschel, an oboist, and his wife, Anna.
3. Anna believed girls weren't good for much besides household chores. Only one of Caroline's three sisters survived, the eldest, Sophia, who was married by the time Caroline was five. Hence most of the household chores fell to Caroline. At 10, she contracted typhus, which stunted her growth (as an adult, she was only four feet three inches tall) and damaged the vision in her left eye. It was assumed then that she'd never marry and the only career open to her was that of a household servant. Anna didn't even allow Caroline to be educated enough to become a governess. She was actively forbidden from learning anything that might result in her financial independence. Her father, however, disagreed, and when Anna was away, would let Caroline sit in with her brothers' lessons.
4. When her father died, two of her brothers, William and Alexander, were living in Bath, England. William was a musician at the time, performing in churches and the brothers thought Caroline would be able to sing at his performances. Her mother wasn't keen on Caroline being anything but a domestic servant, but William persuaded her, possibly by pointing out he needed someone to run his household as well. Caroline eventually left Hanover on 16 August 1772.
5. On arrival in Bath, she took singing lessons and learned to play the harpsichord. She performed with her brother at small gatherings, and even wrote some songs of her own. Only one was ever published, despite interest from London publishers. It was called The Echo. Her career as a singer and musician was limited, however, since she refused to sing for any conductor other than William. So when he lost interest in Music in favour of astronomy, her musical career ended.
6. Caroline was a reluctant astronomer at first. As always, she supported William in everything he did, and when he needed someone to polish the mirrors of his Telescopes, record and organise his observations and bring him food while he worked, Caroline would do it. At first, she grumbled in her diary that she was little more than a trained puppy dog, doing as she was told, but she came to enjoy the work, and was good at it. She learned to copy astronomical catalogues and other publications that William had borrowed, and as time went on, would re-organise them to make it easier for her to find William's reference points.
7. From 1783, Caroline started making discoveries of her own. Her first discovery was a nebula. This sparked William's interest in looking for nebulae. Later on, Caroline would discover eight comets. She wasn't, however, the first woman to discover a comet. That was Maria Kirch, in the early 1700s - but the discovery was attributed to her husband at the time.
8. Caroline and William were close, so when he married a rich widow, Mary Pitt in 1788, her life changed for the worse. She was no longer his housekeeper, and she had to move out of his house and just go there daily to work. She didn't even have the keys to the observatory any more. People assume she was bitter and jealous of Mary. Perhaps she was - we'll never know, because Caroline destroyed the journals she wrote at that time. We do know that in later years she and Mary exchanged affectionate letters, and Caroline became close to her nephew, John. Perhaps this later friendship was the reason she destroyed the journals, ashamed, perhaps, of the negative things she'd written back then. Just a theory. In any case, Caroline continued to work on astronomical projects on her own and made many discoveries - so William's marriage may actually have helped her achieve the independence she had craved all her life.
9. When William died in 1822, Caroline moved back to Hanover. The bigger city wasn't conducive to astronomy though - too many tall buildings. By 1824, she'd given up on observing the night sky, making the last entry in her observing book on January of that year. She remained physically and socially active for years afterwards. While bemoaning the fact she could no longer make any new discoveries, she wrote her memoirs, continued her cataloguing work, and did all she could to help her nephew, John. She lived to the age of 97.
10. She is buried in Hanover next to her parents and with a lock of William's hair. Her tombstone inscription reads, "The eyes of her who is glorified here below turned to the starry heavens." The Asteroid 281 Lucretia, discovered in 1888, was named after Caroline's middle name, and the crater C. Herschel on the Moon is named after her.

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