Margaret Herschel

Margaret Brodie Stewart was born in 1810. Her father was Alexander Stewart DD, a Scottish Presbyterian minister and Gaelic scholar. This led Margaret to seek out a friendship with John's aunt the astronomer Caroline Herschel, where Margaret sought to learn about Caroline's scientific career. As her children grew older and the household had more domestic staff, Margaret spent more time studying. She studied German and algebra, and supported her husband in his work. She also ensured that both her sons and daughters received equally solid educations, although the girls were not able to go away to school at eleven or attend university like their brothers. == Visit to Cape Colony ==

The voyage to Cape Colony was made so that her husband could catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies. They arrived in Cape Town on 15 January 1834 and chose to live at Feldhausen, an old estate in Claremont, a suburb of Cape Town, where her husband set up a private telescope. He collaborated with Thomas Maclear, the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope and the two families became close friends. '' 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. 112 of their flower studies were collected and published as Flora Herscheliana in 1996. 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. 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. ==Death and legacy==

Lady Margaret Herschel died in 1884. Besides the posthumus publication Flora Herscheliana, some of her letters are in Trinity College ==Private life==

She had married her cousin John Herschel on 3 March 1829 File:John and Margaret Herschels daughters in c 1860.png|thumb|The Herschel daughters in the 1860s (from left to right): Constance Anne, Caroline Emilia Mary, Margaret Louisa, Isabella Herschel, Francisca ('Fancy'), and Matilda Rose (unknown photographer) • Amelia Herschel (1841–1926) • Francisca Herschel (1846–1932) • Constance Anne Herschel (1855–20 June 1939) ==References==