27 August: Boreham on William Herschel

The Herschel Bicentenary
Fairly frequently, in this erratic world, a man has aimed at a pigeon and killed a crow, but that flukish achievement has seldom been performed on quite as imposing and stately a scale as that on which it was executed by Sir William Herschel, whose bi-centenary will next week be celebrated throughout Europe.[1] William Herschel, who was born on November 15, 1738, aimed at being, one great day, the conductor of a German band, and pictured himself wearing a striking uniform and waving a baton to the admiration of the crowd of pleasure-seekers who idled around the rotunda. In very occasional and more daring dreams he saw himself elevated to an even more exalted position in the musical realm. He might, he soaringly fancied, become the leader of an oratorio, or, if all the fates were propitious, might even compose a little music on his own account. But whatever prizes the future held in store for him, they were to be musical prizes. Music was his passion, and life was fairly well advanced before it occurred to him to offer the homage of his soul at any other shrine. Had it been suggested to him in the earlier part of his career that the world would forget that he ever dabbled in music, and would remember him as one of the most brilliant astronomers that the ages had ever known, he would incontinently have laughed that grotesque prognostication to scorn. Yet so it happened. For many years music monopolised his mind, and the stars were, in more senses than one, millions of miles away. Then, in early manhood, music became the serious business of his life and astronomy the hobby of his leisure hours. Imperceptibly but surely, as the years multiplied, the lure of other worlds increased its hold upon him. Little by little the stars conquered the semi-quavers—and today we contemplate, across the intervening centuries, the record not of a distinguished composer, but of an astronomer of the very first rank.

Australian Repercussions
The record of Sir William Herschel's illustrious career should be of special interest to those of us whose lives are spent beneath the Southern Cross. To the new impetus that Sir William Herschel gave to stellar and meteorological research, we owe the initiation of astronomical inquiry in these young lands. In the very year in which Sir William Herschel died, the first Australian observation station was erected at Parramatta by Sir Thomas Brisbane. The phenomenal developments that have followed are well known. Centuries are, of course, the mere ticks of the clock compared with those stupendous spans of time in which astronomers and geologists delight. And yet, however long the world may last, students of scientific advance will always turn with special interest to the hurricane of progress which has marked the period intervening between the appearance of Herschel and the present day. Astronomy, it is true, is very old. In India there are records of the movements of Jupiter and Saturn which are believed to belong to, an epoch separated by 50 centuries from our own. The Chinese claim that their ancient savants observed the simultaneous conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Mercury with the moon as long ago as 2500 B.C. And the monuments still in existence prove that the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Greeks followed with intelligent enthusiasm the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. Yet, if we grant, on the one hand, that astronomy, as a recognised science, is 50 centuries old, we have to admit, on the other, that the progress made during the first 48 of those centuries was a negligible quantity compared with the abounding fruitfulness of the magnificent discoveries that have marked the past 200 years. And when the annals of those two sensational centuries are critically reviewed by some scientific historian of the days to come, and when the personal factors are carefully and dispassionately assessed, no name will seem more deserving of the applause of posterity than the lustrous name of Sir William Herschel.

Conqueror Of Two Worlds
It is pleasant to remember that his youthful dream was realised. He wore his handsome uniform. He waved his baton on the rotunda. He conducted a German band to the delight of an English crowd. He went further, as, in his more dazzling dreams, he fancied that he might. He organised several concerts and even became leader of a popular and successful oratorio. By this time he had settled as an organist at Bath. How he learned to play the organ nobody ever knew, and, even to himself, it was as great a mystery as the riddle of the Sphinx. He had played the hautboy, the harpsichord, the violin, and the flute, and, when he was offered the position of organist at the Octagon Chapel, he felt that the chance was too good to be thrown away on the mere technical pretext that he possessed not the slightest knowledge of organs. Bath was in those days a centre of fashion. Beau Nash and his circle had given it a name such as no city ever before enjoyed. The elite of the land flocked to its promenades and its waters. Herschel soon made himself the talk of the town. His recitals, oratorios, and concerts were thronged by statesmen, poets, divines, scholars, and by some of the brightest ornaments of English society. Herschel resolved to broaden his base of operations. He had in Germany an unmarried sister who could sing, and he sent for her to join him.[2] She came, and, before very long, her vocal triumphs were as notable as his instrumental ones. She was invited to sing at the great London festivals, but she modestly replied that, since her brother had lifted her from obscurity to fame and from poverty to luxury, she could only allow her voice to be heard in buildings in which he led the orchestra. The pair were at the climax of their success when their ears became captivated by the strains of still more celestial harmonies.

A Sister's Loyalty
They heard the music of the spheres. Finding their evening performances exciting and exhausting, the brother and sister acquired the habit of taking long walks together after the theatre was closed, in order to induce a healthy weariness and a sound sleep. In the course of those mid-night rambles there was nothing to be seen but the stars. They became interested in the various constellations and coveted a more familiar intimacy with their movements. They bought first a handbook on astronomy and then a telescope. But the telescope, though the best procurable, was pitifully feeble, and they made up their minds to construct for themselves a better one. They studied the laws of optics and soon fashioned a paste-board instrument which, though something of a blunderbuss, gave them a far more sweeping and far more detailed view of the heavens than any telescope that could be bought. Never mentioning their pursuit to anyone, they laboured to improve their new toy, and quickly brought it to such perfection that they could distinctly make out the rings of Saturn. At length, after several years of patient industry and research, a doctor, called out in the night, came upon the two musicians standing in the middle of the road, taking it in turns to look through their monstrous telescope. The doctor—Sir William Watson, himself a member of the Royal Society—asked permission to look through the unwieldy instrument, and on doing so recognised at once that, with the Herschels, astronomic science had taken a notable step forward. The secret was out. The people who had besieged the pair, to hear William play and Caroline sing, now flocked to them to crave permission to peep through that wonderful telescope of theirs. From that hour astronomy waxed as music waned. The glass was strengthened and improved until, after a few years, the brother and sister possessed an instrument 40ft. long. In 1779, at the age of 41, Herschel began a systematic investigation of the skies. Two years later he discovered the planet Uranus, was made astronomer to the King, and was granted a pension of 400 pounds a year. At the age of 64 he told the Royal Society of 5,000 different clusters of stars that he had himself discovered. He swept the heavens as the heavens had never been swept, before. He was knighted at 78, and six years later, having completed a work by which every subsequent age will feel itself to have been immeasurably enriched, he peacefully died. Caroline, his sister, it is pleasant to remember, survived him by many years. She only just fell short of centenarian honours. At the age of 96, the King of Prussia, introducing her to a distinguished company, described her as "the famous woman astronomer." "Forgive me, Your Majesty," Caroline replied, "but I am not a famous astronomer; I was simply my brother's assistant!" The whole story is one of the romances of science, and the whole world will welcome the opportunity provided by the Bicentenary of recalling and immortalising it.

[1] This editorial appears in the Hobart Mercury on November 11, 1938. Herschel was born on November 15, 1738 and died on August 28, 1822.
[2] A further editorial devoted to the contribution of William Herschel's sister, Caroline, appears in this book on 9 January.

F W Boreham

Image: William Herschel