The English astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871) is noted for his observations of the stars in the southern hemisphere.

John Herschel was born at Slough on March 7, 1792, son of William Herschel, the most eminent astronomer of the period. His early training was in mathematics at Cambridge, where he graduated first in his class in 1813. He quickly established himself with the production of mathematical papers, which earned him the Copley Medal of the Royal Society.

Soon after graduation Herschel and two classmates composed a textbook on the calculus, which was aimed at, and succeeded in, introducing into England the more powerful mathematical methods that had been developed on the Continent during the preceding century. This work, however, signaled both the beginning and the end of Herschel's career as a mathematician. Interested primarily in chemistry, he spent the next few years pursuing it and dabbling variously in law...