1-152-570 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

John Frederick Herschel (1792-1871), English astronomer and scientist, 1847. A photograph off Herschel taken when he was Master of the Mint (1850-1855) showing him holding a florin (2 shilling piece) which was being introduced with the idea of decimalization of the coinage. The son of Sir William Herschel, who discovered the planet Uranus, John Herschel followed his father in astronomical research, mapping the sky of the southern hemisphere and cataloguing many previously unseen stars. He was also a pioneer photographer, and coined the photographic terms 'negative and 'positive'.