German-born British Astronomer. She is the first woman known to have received a salary as a scientist. Caroline Lucretia Herschel was born in the Electorate of Hanover, the eighth child of Isaak Herschel, an oboist and bandmaster, and his wife Anna Ilse Moritzen. Caroline suffered from typhus and smallpox as a child and as a result suffered vision loss in one eye, and permanently stunted growth. It was presumed that Caroline would never marry, and her mother planned for her to be the family's housekeeper. She was prevented from gaining the education and practical skills that would have allowed her to become independent. In the 1770s, her brother William, then working in Bath, England, as a professional musician and music teacher, requested that Caroline join him as a singer to accompany his performances. Anna reluctantly agreed and Caroline joined William in 1772, taking over the running of his household, receiving singing and harpsichord lessons, and assisting her brother with his astronomical observations and experiments with telescopes. Caroline became essential to William's efforts to build more powerful and precise telescopes, and often took responsibility for recording and organising his observations, as he devoted more time to astronomy and less to music. In 1782, Caroline and William moved to Datchet in Berkshire, as the latter was appointed court astronomer to George III. Caroline was tasked with systematically sweeping the sky with a specially constructed telescope to discover interesting astronomical objects. Between 1786 and 1797, Caroline discovered eight new comets, five of which were published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as a number of nebulae and star clusters. In 1798 she published the 'Catalogue of Stars', which made some corrections to John Flamsteed's 'Historia Coelestis' and added more than 500 new astronomical objects. In 1787 she was granted an annual salary from George III in her own right. Following William's death in 1822, Caroline returned to Hanover, where she continued her astronomical work, compiling a catalogue of 2500 nebulae and star clusters, which was ultimately expanded upon to become the 'New General Catalogue'. In 1828 she was awarded the gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society for this work "which may be considered as the completion of a series of exertions probably unparalleled either in magnitude or importance in the annals of astronomical labour." In 1835, she and Mary Somerville were elected the first female Honorary Members of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1846, at the age of 96, she was awarded the Gold Medal of Arts and Sciences by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. William and Caroline Herschel's former home at 19 New King Street, Bath, is now the Herschel Museum of Astronomy.

(Bio by contributor Tim Johnson)