Patrick O'Brian Discussion Forum

Tumblehome
benbarnes@sympatico.ca

The "who" is Joseph Blaine.  The "who" is also Stephen Maturin although the Blaine connection to Banks is the more obvious.

The Age of Wonder deals in great and informative detail with both Caroline and William Herschel.

TH




On Fri Nov 6, Chrístő wrote
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>On Fri Nov 6, Tumblehome wrote
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>>4) Herschel was pals with Joseph Banks
>>5) who is the model for you know who

>Who?

>A more direct link is vis Miss Herschel who advises Jack on grinding his new 6" speculum mirror. This was, I learn, 'Herschel, Caroline Lucretia (1750–1848), astronomer, . . ' who merits a DNB entry, from which comes:
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>' . . William and Caroline arrived at their new home at Datchet . . 1782 . . ‘I found’, she wrote later,

>I was to be trained for an assistant Astronomer; and by way of encouragement a Telescope adapted for sweeping … was given to me. I was to sweep for comets. … But it was not till the last two months of the same year before I felt the least encouragement for spending the starlight nights on a grass-plot convered by dew or hoar frost without a human being near enough to be within call.

> . . the astronomer royal, Maskelyne, visited the Herschels and left the following description of Caroline at work:
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>[The sweeper] is a very powerful instrument, & shews objects very well … The height of the eye-glass is altered but little in sweeping from the horizon to the zenith. This she does and down again in 6 or 8 minutes, & then moves the telescope a little forward in azimuth, & sweeps another portion of the heavens in like manner. She will thus sweep a quarter of the heavens in one night.

>Caroline was to become famous as the discoverer, or co-discoverer, of no fewer than eight comets,  . .
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>Declining years: Caroline was a local celebrity, visited by passing scientists of the calibre of Humboldt and Gauss. For her ninety-sixth birthday Humboldt presented her with the gold medal for science, in the name of the king of Prussia; a year later she entertained the crown prince and princess for two hours, and sang them a song by William . .

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