Dee. 1, 1871.] 211 { Field. 
Obiiuary Notice of 
Str Jonn FREDERICK WILLIAM HERscHEL, BaRtT., 
By Mr. Henry W. Frievp, or Lonpon. 
Read before the American Philosophical Society, December 1, 187i. 
It is the painful duty of our Society to record the loss we have sus- 
tained in our membership, and indeed we may well say, the loss to the 
world in general, by the decease of the illustrious Sir John F. W. Her- 
schel, Bart. 
His father, Sir William Herschel, came from Hanover to England, in 
1759, as one of the Hanoverian Guards’ Band; and was for some time the 
subject of disappointment and privation. He however became instructor 
to a regimental band, stationed in the North, and fortunately obtained an 
organist’s appointment in Yorkshire, and subsequently at Bath. Here 
it was that his taste for astronomy became developed, and from whence 
his first papers, ‘Observations of the Periodical Star Mira Ceti ” issued. 
They were read before the Royal Society, in London, on the 10th May, 
1780. : 
In 1781, the results of his studies and speculations led to his great dis- 
covery of Uranus (specially interesting from its leading to the discovery 
of the remote planet Neptune) which placed him most prominent in Sci- 
entific rank, which standing he retained until his death in 1822, being then 
in his 84th year. 
Mr. Herschel, our lamented member, (unlike his father who raised him- 
self from the humble rank of a regimental musician) after being edu- 
cated privately by a Mr. Rogers, at an early age entered St. John’s College, 
Cambridge, where by his great success and taste for science he graduated 
B. A. in 1813. He came outin the Mathematical Tripos, Senior Wrangler; 
an honor which was further enhanced by his attainment of the Firs 
Smith’s Prize. That his year was what is called, in Cambridge, ‘‘a good 
year,”’ is evident from the names of the distinguished men of whom he 
took precedence, such as the following :—Peacock, Dean of Ely ; Fallows, 
late Astronomer Royal at the Cape; Romilly, late Registrar of the Uni- 
versity ; Amos, Mill, and other men of note, whose names adorn the Det 
partments of Science, Theology and Literature. It may be worth while 
to note the feeling which subsisted among his fellow collegians ; Charles 
Babbage, the mathematician (lately deceased) who coveted the honor of 
of Senior Wranglership, but knowing the powers of his antagonist, Her- 
schel, declined to appear in the Mathematical Tripos, choosing rather to 
be at the Head of the Poll. 
On the 27 May, 1813, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, and 
became one of its most active members, receiving in 1821 the Copley 
medal. 
At his father’s death he pursued that branch of science calied ‘‘ Observ- 
ing A stronomy,’’ and about this time he conceived tie desirability of form- 
ing a Special Society, and was most active in its foundation, the present 
‘‘Royal Astronomical Society.”’ 
A. P. S.—VOL, XII—2B. 
