Margaret Herschel

Lady Margaret Brodie Stewart was born in 1810.[1] Her father was Alexander Stewart DD, a Scottish Presbyterian minister and Gaelic scholar.[2]

She married her cousin John Herschel on 3 March 1829[2] in Edinburgh.

The Ship ‘Mount Stewart Elphinstone’ Offshore by William Adolphus Knell

Her husband had his own inherited money and he paid £500 for passage on the S.S. Mountstuart Elphinstone. She and her husband and their three children and her husband's 20 inch telescope departed from Portsmouth on 13 November 1833.[2]

The voyage to South Africa was made so that her husband could catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies.[3] They arrived in Cape Town on 15 January 1834 and set up a private 21 ft (6.4 m) telescope at Feldhausen at Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town. Her husband collaborated with Thomas Maclear, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope and the two families became close friends.

Gladiolus caryophyllaceus by Margaret & John Herschel

Herschel and her husband between 1834 and 1838 produced 131 botanical illustrations showing Cape flora. They used a camera lucida to obtained outlines of the specimens and Margaret dealt particularly with the details. Their portfolio had been intended as a personal record, and despite the lack of floral dissections in the paintings, their accuracy made them valuable. They were later published.[4]

As their home during their stay in the Cape, the Herschels had selected 'Feldhausen' ("Field Houses"),[4] an old estate on the south-eastern side of Table Mountain.

When HMS Beagle called at Cape Town, Captain Robert FitzRoy and the young naturalist Charles Darwin visited Herschel on 3 June 1836. Later on, Darwin would be influenced by Herschel's writings in developing his theory advanced in The Origin of Species.[5]

They returned to England in 1838, where her husband became a baronet, of Slough in the County of Buckingham and she became Lady Margaret Herschel.[3]

She died in 1884 and some of her letters are in Trinity College[1] and others are the British Library.[6]

112 of the 132 known flower studies by Margaret and her husband were collected and published as Flora Herscheliana in 1996. The book also included work by Charles Davidson Bell and Thomas Bowler.[4]

She had married her cousin John Herschel on 3 March 1829[2] in Edinburgh, and they had the following children:[7]

Constance Anne Herschel, Lady Lubbock; Caroline Emilia Mary Herschel, Lady Hamilton-Gordon; Margaret Louisa Herschel; Isabella Herschel; Francisca ('Fancy') Herschel; Matilda Rose Herschel[8]

1. Caroline Emilia Mary Herschel (31 March 1830 – 29 January 1909),[8] who married the soldier and politician Alexander Hamilton-Gordon
2. Isabella Herschel (5 June 1831 – 1893)
3. Sir William James Herschel, 2nd Bt. (9 January 1833 – 1917),
4. Margaret Louisa Herschel (1834–1861), an accomplished artist
5. Prof. Alexander Stewart Herschel (1836–1907), FRS, FRAS[1]
6. Col. John Herschel FRS, FRAS, (1837–1921) surveyor
7. Maria Sophia Herschel (1839–1929)[1] married Henry Hardcastle[9]
8. Amelia Herschel (1841–1926)[1] married Sir Thomas Francis Wade,[8] diplomat and sinologist
9. Julia Herschel (1842–1933) married on 4 June 1878 to Captain (later Admiral) John Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear
10. Matilda Rose Herschel (1844–1914), a gifted artist, married William Waterfield (Indian Civil Service)[8]
11. Francisca Herschel (1846–1932)
12. Constance Anne Herschel (1855–20 June 1939)[8]