Caroline Herschel Tells of How She Became the First Woman Scientist to be Paid by the UK Government

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I’m Caroline Herschel, and I was born in 1750 in Hanover, Germany. You might say I had a difficult start to life. When I was young, I got very sick with typhus, and it stunted my growth—I never got taller than four foot three. People assumed I’d just stay at home forever, maybe as a maid or someone’s helper. But life had different plans for me.

When I was about 22, my older brother William Herschel, who had moved to England, invited me to join him. He was working as a musician at the time, and I thought I’d help him with housework and maybe some singing. But William had another passion—astronomy. He built telescopes and spent his nights studying the sky. And soon, I was helping him—not with dishes, but with the stars.

At first, I was his assistant. I polished mirrors, wrote down his observations, and kept detailed records. But over time, I started making my own discoveries. In 1786, I found my first comet—and I would go on to discover eight comets in total. That might not sound like a big deal today, but back then, I was the first woman in history to be officially recognized for finding a comet. It got people’s attention—even King George III gave me a small salary, making me the first woman in Britain to be paid for scientific work.

I worked alongside William for many years, helping him map the skies and catalog thousands of stars. After his death, I didn’t stop. In fact, I went back to Germany and continued organizing and refining our work, even earning the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society when I was 77—something no woman had ever received before.

I didn’t set out to become a scientist. I wasn’t allowed to go to school like my brothers. But I had curiosity, persistence, and a brother who believed in me. That made all the difference. So to all of you students out there: if someone says you can’t do something because of who you are or where you came from, look up at the stars—and remember that I was once told the same thing. And yet, I made it all the way to the edge of the universe.

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