Local historical figures

Born in Hanover on 15 November 1738, Friedrich Wilhem, as he was christened, was one of the six surviving children of Isaac Herschel, an oboist in the Hanoverian footguards. At the age of 14 Herschel also joined the guards as an oboist but in 1757, with his father's encouragement, left the army and went to  London, accompanied by his older brother Jacob.

After a couple of years in London Herschel moved north to take charge of the Durham militia band and was soon in great demand as a teacher and performer. He was a prolific composer and talented instrumentalist, playing oboe, violin, cello, harpsichord and organ, writing solo works for all of them.

In August 1766 he became the organist at Halifax parish church but was lured away within months by the offer of the organist's post at the new and fashionable Octagon Chapel in Bath. Herschel was joined there by his sister Caroline who stayed with him to the end of his life, recording and helping with his astronomical observations, and making several significant astronomical discoveries herself.

It was after he arrived in Bath that Herschel began to focus on his passion for astronomy. He read Robert Smith's Optics and Harmonics and James Ferguson's seminal Astronomy and began to work on building his own telescope. He wanted to see and understand what he called "the construction of the heavens"; not only the solar system but also the universe.

Frustrated by the limitations of glass technology, he taught himself to grind and polish telescopic mirrors between musical engagements, becoming pre-eminent in that field and known and respected internationally as a builder of large reflecting telescopes.

Throughout the 1770s and 80s Herschel had been making detailed observations of the heavens from the back garden of his house in New King Street, Bath, recording what he saw in his astronomical journals.

On 13 March 1781, while searching for 'double-stars' among the brightest stars in the night sky, one in the constellation Gemini particularly caught his attention. This would turn out not to be a star, but the planet Uranus, for the discovery of which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded the Copley medal.

International fame followed, attracting the attention of that fellow Hanoverian, George III, who granted him a small pension for which he was required to live near Windsor Castle and show the heavens to the royal family when requested. He and his sister Caroline moved to a house in Datchet and by October 1783 Herschel had built a 20ft telescope and begun the systematic deep sky surveys of the area visible from Windsor that took him and his sister 20 years to complete. This observational marathon is unparalleled in the history of astronomy.

In 1788 Herschel married Mary, the widow of his friend and neighbour John Pitt. Their only child, John Frederick William Herschel, was born in 1792. Herschel's health was beginning to deteriorate, damaged by long nights in the cold and the damp and in 1816 John gave up his career as a Cambridge don to familiarise himself with his father's work which he continued with great distinction after his death in 1822.

Before he died, Herschel made one last major scientific discovery. As he was passing sunlight through a prism, searching for a way to filter sun rays so he could observe sun spots, Herschel noted that a thermometer placed just beyond the red end of the visible spectrum was registering a higher temperature than the spectrum he could see and correctly deduced that there was an invisible form of light beyond the visible spectrum - infra-red rays.

The veteran astronomer Patrick Moore gave him a fitting epitaph: "William Herschel was the first man to give a reasonably correct picture of the shape of our star-system or galaxy; he was the best telescope-maker of his time, and possibly the greatest observer who ever lived."

Herschel's connection with the borough

Herschel moved to Datchet in 1782 to be near the King and his family in Windsor Castle and stayed there for three years. He lived in a house which was part of a complex of buildings later called The Lawn, some of which remains today. He and Caroline then lived for a year at Clay Hall in Old Windsor before moving in 1786 to 'Observatory' House (now demolished) on the Windsor Road in Slough. From there, in 1787, he discovered two satellites of Uranus (named Titania and Oberon by his son), Mimas and Enceladus two new satellites of Saturn and coined the word asteroid, meaning starlike. He lived in Slough until his death on 25 August 1822 and is buried nearby at St Laurence's Church, Upton.

Herschel has given his name to craters on the moon and Mars, to the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, to the Herschel Space Observatory (the largest space telescope of its kind launched in 2009 by the European Space Agency), to streets, schools, research institutions and museums all over the world. Nearer home, he has given his name to the Herschel Memorial Observatory run by the Herschel Astronomical Society in the grounds of Eton College, to Herschel Grammar School, Herschel Park, the Herschel Arms pub and indirectly to The Observatory Shopping Centre. The undulating shape of the Bus Station (2011) in Slough, representing waves of light, was supposedly inspired by Herschel's discoveries.