Constance Anne (1855-1939), John Herschel's ninth daughter, grew up to be married to Sir Nevile Lubbock and had seven children. She has been famed for her everlasting great work she wrote late in her life "the Herschel Chronicle" 1933, Cambridge, which described in full detail lives of William and Caroline and was subtitled as "the Life-Story of William Herschel and his sister Caroline Herschel". Despite of her prominent work, little has been known about her childhood.
Recently I received a photocopy of "Copy of note written by Lady Lubbock nee Constance Ann Herschel" from Mrs Ellingworth, a Herschel descendant (a granddaughter of Matilda Rose [1844-1914], who was John's seventh daughter). This is a note as a letter Constance wrote to her children just before her 81st birthday in March 1936.
She described in detail her home life with her parents and sisters. It too seems valuable particularly to know John's personality as a educator in his family. I asked Mrs Ellingworth to allow me to publish the note in a top article in our Newsletter and she kindly gave me a permission. The following is a part of the note:
My education was entirely conducted at home and as an example of the education of a girl in the Victorian age I think it may claim to have been fairly broad and varied, both in matter and in manner, for I had many teachers. My sisters' governess, Miss Karth, who was a French Alsatian, taught me French and German from the moment I could speak, so that when she left Collingwood, I being then not quite 8 years old, I could read both languages easily and chatter nursery French. Thereafter my Father undertook to teach me Latin and mathematics, while my Mother and sisters divided other subjects between them. There was nothing slipshod about this home teaching. The hours were regularly planned out; every day's lessons were settled beforehand. My day began at 8 o'clock when I went to my Father's room to receive half an hour's lesson in Latin while he was yet in bed. I then went to my Mother to read to her first some chapter of the Bible and after than some poetry. I may mention here that before I was fourteen I had read aloud the whole of Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and the whole of the Fairy Queen. On Sunday evenings I used to repeat to my Father long pieces of poetry which I had learnt by heart.
After breakfast I was free to run about in the garden, to feed my rabbits or to watch the coachman grooming the horses. At 10.30 I came in to lessons. One of each of my three sisters took the morning lesson for two days in the week. Isabella taught me geography. Julia history and literature and Rose drawing. At 12 o'clock I went either to my Father for mathematics or to read aloud to my Mother in the drawing room till lunch time, 1 o'clock. The books she chose were very various; some times travels, Eustace's Italy or even guide books to Paris and Rome, or more serious subjects such as Butler's Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion. My Mother, having herself been taught by her Father, a Scotch Doctor of Divinity, laid great stress on the importance of logic and I had to make a very close analysis of Butler's argument to please her.
One thing strikes me on looking back; holidays were not considered at all. When one sister went away from home there was always another at hand to take her place; Amelia for instance would start teaching me Italian if Bella or Julia were absent, but for me the lessons went on happily and uninterrupted month after month, till at length my health suggested to my Mother that a change was desirable and I was sent for some weeks to Hastings with my eldest sister Lady Gordon, was living with her children who were of my own age.
My sister Bella was a born teacher and her geography lessons were delightful though some what discursive. Julia's on the other hand were more systematic. She had been taught history by Miss Karth on the excellent French method and we made elaborate charts of events in Europe and the rest of the world and for reading we had admirable French manuals of history from which I learnt about the Ottoman Empire and the story of the Arabs in Spain and Sicily as well as of Charlemagne's conquests so that when later we read more serious history books I had wider background in my mind than was usual for children at that time. It is a pleasure to recall all the names of the books which Julia and I read together (and of which I had to write analyses). There were first Bonnechose, Histoire d'Angleterre; Anquetil histoire de France. Miss Sewell Ancient History and Mrs delightful Histories of Greece and Rome. Then came Alison's History of Europe which brought the story from the fall of the Roman Empire down to the Middle Ages and then all Prescott's books, The Conquest of Mexico and Peru and finally and most thrilling of all Motley's Dutch Republic and United Netherlands. We also read Macauley's history and Stanhope's Life of Queen Anne, but about this time my Father died and all our regular home life fell in ruin. I was not quite 16 when he died and to me his loss meant the end of all my happy childhood. We continued to live as before at Collingwood but with the absence of his inspiring personality everything seemed objectless. My own education came to a standstill.
Rose was Constance's seventh sister (1844-1914), Amelia was her fifth sister (1841-1921), Bella(=Isabella) was her second sister (1831-93), Julia was her sixth sister (1842-1933) and Lady Gordon was her eldest sister, Caroline (1830-1909).
Quoted from Newsletter Issue No 59 (November 1993) and No 60 (January 1994)