John Herschel the Younger facts for kids

Colonel John Herschel (born October 29, 1837 – died May 31, 1921) was a talented English military engineer, surveyor, and astronomer. He was the son of a famous scientist, Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet, and the grandson of William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus! John followed in his family's footsteps, exploring the world and the stars.

A Life of Discovery

Early Life and Education

John Herschel was born in Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town in what was then the British Cape Colony of South Africa. He was the sixth child in a large family of twelve children. His family had moved to the Cape in 1833. His father, Sir John Herschel, was there to map the stars in the southern sky.

In 1838, when John was just a baby, his family moved back to England. He went to school at Clapham Grammar School. Later, he attended the East India Company Military Seminary at Addiscombe. This school trained young men to become officers in the army.

Joining the Military

After his schooling, John Herschel joined the East India Company. This company used to rule a large part of India. He became a cadet in the Bengal Engineers. This was a special group of military engineers.

In 1856, he started training at the Royal School of Military Engineering in Chatham. Here, he learned important skills like sapping (digging trenches towards an enemy) and mining (digging tunnels under enemy defenses).

Soon after, in 1858, the British government took direct control of India. John's regiment, the Bengal Engineers, then became part of the Royal Engineers. This was a famous engineering branch of the British Army.

Exploring India and the Stars

John Herschel soon traveled to India. There, he joined the Great Trigonometrical Survey. This was a huge project to accurately map the entire Indian subcontinent. From 1864 to 1872, he worked on surveying different parts of Southern India.

In 1867, he got married to Mary Cornwallis Power. She was the daughter of Reverend F. Lipscomb. While working as a surveyor, John also made many of his own observations of the stars.

Scientific Discoveries

John Herschel was not just a surveyor; he was also a keen astronomer. He used special tools to study the light from the sun's outer atmosphere, called the solar corona. He did this during a total solar eclipse on August 18, 1868.

In November of that year, he studied the Carina Nebula. This is a huge cloud of gas and dust in space. He was one of the first people to notice a sudden brightening of a star called Eta Carinae within this nebula.

He also did experiments using a special device called a Cavendish pendulum. This was to help calculate how dense, or heavy, the Earth is.

Later Career and Achievements

After his work in India, John Herschel returned to England in 1873. He spent time organizing his late father's letters. In 1876, he was promoted to the rank of major.

In 1882, he traveled to the United States. There, he worked with another scientist, Charles Sanders Peirce. They built pendulums to measure gravity and map the Earth's shape for the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Eventually, John Herschel became the Deputy Superintendent of the Trigonometrical Survey. He retired from the army in 1886. He left with the honorary rank of Colonel.

For his important scientific work, he was chosen as a member of the Royal Society in 1871. He also became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1872. John Herschel passed away in 1921 at the age of 83.