Collection of letters and manuscripts relating to the Herschel family

Dr Louisiane Ferlier, Digital Resources Manager, writes:  Thanks to the generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries, the Royal Society acquired this important collection of manuscripts, typescripts and artefacts related to the Herschel family.

The lot consists of  six very large archive boxes, containing a considerable number (800-1,000 letters?) of manuscripts related to the Herschel family. It includes unique correspondence with Sir John Frederick William Herschel FRS (1792-1871) and his wife, botanical artist Margaret Brodie (Stewart) Herschel, including scientific and personal correspondence from many other Fellows of the Royal Society of the likes of Charles Lyell, William Henry Fox Talbot, William Henry Smyth, William Whewell and others. 

Upon surveying the lot on offer ahead of the auction, we found that the majority leans strongly towards the ‘next generations’ of family scientists: the surveyor and astronomer Colonel John Herschel FRS (1837-1921), his brothers Sir William James Herschel (1833-1917) judge and fingerprinting pioneer, and the astronomer Alexander Stewart Herschel FRS (1836-1907); with letters from JFW Herschel’s and Margaret’s daughters and granddaughters. 

The new material related to the women of the Herschel family is of particular interest as it has never been studied by historians before and is absent from the existing RS Herschel collections. This supports the Society’s diversity agenda and is of primary interest to historians. 

Similarly, the letters of Colonel John Herschel, and William James Herschel, relate to their careers as military and government scientists and officials in India during the 1857 Indian Uprising, and are therefore of great interest to historians of science and empire.

This is an essential and timely addition to the Royal Society’s archives: the Royal Society is the main public repository for Herschel family papers, and already holds the scientific correspondence of Sir John F W Herschel (more than 10,600 letters and supplementary material) and working papers of Colonel John Herschel FRS (on pendulum and other research).

The Society is undertaking a major digitisation programme on the existing Herschel letters under the guidance of an advisory board composed of Herschel scholars, partner institutions and members of the Herschel family who have welcomed this acquisition as a milestone.  The collection has been catalogued and digitised as part of this initiative and made accessible to all on our online platform, Science in the Making. As an accredited archive and a world-leading collection for the history of science, the Royal Society is also in an excellent position to make the collection available to the public in our reading rooms.