Jean-Charles Houzeau

File:PSM V38 D448 Jean Charles Houzeau.jpg

Portrait of Houzeau published in The Popular Science Monthly, 1891

Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie (October 7, 1820 – July 12, 1888) was a Belgian astronomer and journalist.

Life

He was born in Havré (a small city near Mons), then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, later in Belgium. From 1842, he worked as a voluntary assistant at the Brussels Observatory and began writing papers. He eventually became the observatory's director. He travelled a lot during his career, to Paris, the United Kingdom, United States, Mexico and Jamaica.

The scientist moved to New Orleans after being removed from the Belgian Royal Observatory for "outspoken political views". In Texas by 1858, he first worked as a surveyor, then moved to Uvalde and organized early scientific expeditions.

He believed in the abolition of slavery and so aided the escape of some notable unionists from San Antonio. He soon had to flee, disguised as a Mexican laborer, into Mexico.

Later in New Orleans, when the city had been taken by Federal forces, he ran a Union newspaper, the bilingual New Orleans Tribune - La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans, then for eight years lived in Jamaica. Finally, having kept his European contacts, he was reinstated as director of the Royal Observatory in Brussels.

In December 1882, however, Houzeau made a return trip to Texas. He led a scientific expedition, accompanied by Albert Benoît Lancaster and Charles Emile Stuyvaert, to San Antonio to observe a locally visible transit of Venus across the face of the sun—in those days a method of measuring time and gravity.

Works

His published works include

• Des turbines, de leur construction, du calcul de leur puissance et de leur application à l'industrie (On Turbines, Their Construction, Calculation of Their Power, and Their Application in Industry / Paris, L.M. Augustin, 1839) his first published work, issued when he was 19 years old;
• Atlas de toutes les étoiles visibles à l'oeil nu, formé d'après l'observation directe, dans les deux hémisphères (Atlas of All Stars Visible To the Naked Eye, Developed From Direct Observation in Two Hemispheres / Mons, Belgium, Hector Manceaux, 1878)
• Vade-mecum de l'astronome (The Astronomer's Handbook / Brussels, F. Hayez, 1882);
• Bibliographie générale de L'astronomie depuis L'origine de L'imprimerie Jusqu'en 1880 (General bibliography of Astronomy From Its First Printed Works Until 1880 / Brussels, F. Hayez, 1882–1887); and
• Règles de climatologie (Rules of Climatology /Brussels, Jamar, no date).

References

• http://joyousjam.tripod.com/jeanhouzeauinjamaica/id1.html