Private science and the Imperial imagination: John Herschel's Cape voyage

In 1833 Sir John Herschel sailed to the British Cape Colony in southern Africa. It was a private voyage, the purpose of which was to undertake an astronomical survey of the southern heavens. But his private voyage was interpreted by both the British Government and the British public as a voyage of Imperial scientific exploration. Despite Herschel's explicitly private scientific intentions, he nonetheless became popularly incorporated into the ranks of imperial scientific explorers.