Identity area
Reference code
Herschel/Box 1/Letter 5
Unique identifier
Title
Date(s)
- 2 August 1813 (Creation)
Level of description
Item
Extent and medium
2p. paper
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Astronomer; son of Sir William Herschel; senior wrangler and first Smith's prizeman, 1813; subsequently fellow of St John's College, Cambridge; MA 1816; helped to found Analytical Society, Cambridge, 1813; secretary to Royal Society 1824-7; president of Astronomical Society, 1827-32; created baronet, 1838; president of British Association, 1845; master of the Mint, 1850-5. Major contribution to astronomy through the discovery and cataloguing of many double stars, work on 'light' and early work on photographical process. Buried in Westminster Abbey.
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Asks for the 3rd Volume of Lacroix (1) and as many numbers of the Ecole Polytechnic as possible to be requisitioned from Babbage's (2) Master and sent to Herschel as soon as possible. Gives news of mutual acquaintance, Graham, and his father. Discusses the printing of the 'A.S.'
(1) An elementary treatise on the differential and integral calculus by S. F. Lacroix, translated by Herschel from the French and printed in 1816.
(2) Charles Babbage the mathematician