Herschel, Caroline Lucretia, 1750-1848

Caroline Lucretia Herschel was the first woman to receive full recognition in the field of astronomy. She grew up in Hanover, the only girl among five surviving children of the military musician Isaak Herschel and his wife Anna Ilse Herschel. Against the wishes of her mother, who would have preferred her to be a seamstress, Caroline, like her brothers, received musical training and became a concert singer.

Caroline HerschelWhen she was 22 she followed her brother Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (her elder by twelve years) to England, where he was an organist and conductor in the elegant city of Bath. He needed her as his housekeeper, but also gave her the opportunity to appear as a soloist in his concerts. Soon she had gained the position of first singer, assumed a managerial role in the chorus and received offers to perform in other cities. She would surely have had a great musical career had she not followed her brother's passion for astronomy. Without doubt this was an unusual family, these Herschels from Hanover, among whom great gifts, even double talents (music and astronomy) were apparently the rule: Alexander, also a musician, served as well as an astronomer in brother Wilhelm's family business of studying the skies.

...