Houzeau de Lehaie, Jean-Charles (1820-1888)

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Astronomer, director of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, born 7 October 1820 in Mons and died 10 July 1888 in Brussels.
Brother of Charles-Auguste Houzeau de Lehaie.

Biography

Youth

The son of Charles-Joseph Houzeau de Lehaie (1791-1885) and Philippine Pradier, Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie was born on 7 October 1820 in the family domain l'Ermitage, not far from Mons. He received a basic education from his parents, aristocrats who were sympathetic to the ideas of the enlightenment and the French Revolution. In 1832, he entered the College of Mons at the age of 12. Here he completed his studies in humanities in 1837 and was awarded a silver medal for exceptional academic achievement by the city council. He then took classes at the University of Brussels. He did not like the rigid framework of the lectures and consequently failed the jury for science candidatures. In 1938, he then embarked on a journalistic career, writing political and scientific articles. . On his own, he did astronomical research in a provisional observatory near l'Ermitage, which he equipped himself. He attended courses at the École des mines de Mons irregularly. Between 1840 and 1841 Houzeau stayed in Paris to take classes at the Faculty of Sciences of the Sorbonne. However, he did not take any exams there. When he was back in Brussels in 1842, Houzeau devoted himself to his favourite research: astronomy and geophysics. From 1842 to 1844, he visited numerous Parisian libraries in search of books on science, history and literature.

Houzeau then got into contact with statistician and astronomer Ad. Quetelet and worked as an amateur at the Royal Observatory of Belgium. In August 1844, he presented his first works at the The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium in Brussels. In 1844, he started as a temporary employee at the Royal Observatory. In 1846, he was promoted to assistant astronomer. He made numerous observations there: solar and lunar eclipses, the passage of Mercury across the sun and several comets. He also got into calculations: he determined the orbits of observed comets, the coordinates of Neptune and latitude of Brussels, among others. Because he was so busy with these observations and calculations, his publications were delayed.

At the same time, Houzeau wrote numerous scientific, political or philosophical articles for progressive and proto-socialist newspapers. He echoed the ideas of French socialist philosopher Charles Fourier (1772-1837). He also joined La Phalange, a Brussels-based Fourierist organisation, which advocated the peaceful establishment of a socialist republic. At the time, the revolutions of 1848 in France and Germany were still reverberating in Belgium. Many French democrats fleeing repression were staying in Brussels. Houzeau ignored warnings from Charler Rogier, the minister of the interior, and still chaired a republican banquet on 25 March 1849. He was summarily dismissed from his position at the Observatory. Despite the commotion, he continued to work there as a volunteer assistant for a few more months.

The New World

During the 1850s, Houzeau travelled the wide world. Alone or with friends, he travelled across Europe on foot, through Germany, Austria and southern France. Between 1850 and 1854, he lived as an ascetic in Paris, where he spent his time in libraries. From 1854 to 1857, he worked with the General Nerenburger to draw up a map of Belgium. Houzeau was in charge of the astronomy section. On 16 December 1854, he was appointed correspondent of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Fine Arts. On 15 December 1856, he became a full member of this institution. In 1857, funding for the map project was abruptly stopped by political power. This new disapproval was the straw that broke Houzeau's bucket of disgust for his own country.

In July 1857, Houzeau spent two months in London, dividing his time between Sydenham, the British Museum and the Zoological Garden. At the same time, he learnt the trade of typographer. On 10 September 1857, he embarked in Liverpool on a ship bound for the United States. He would stay there for nineteen years. During this period he lived off his own labour and the pension his wealthy parents paid him. They numerous letters about his experiences and observations on American society were published by the Quarterly Review. He travelled from New Orleans, Louisiana, to San Antonio, Texas, and then settled in the middle of nowhere in this state. He worked there as a surveyor, leveller, prospector and landowner. He bought a ranch and raised cattle and observed nature and the stars in his spare time.

The peace and quiet ended when the US Civil War broke out in 1861. Federal garrisons withdrew from Texas, leaving indigenous Americans free to plunder the farms of settlers like Houzeau. To survive, he posed as an innocent who had unwittingly been drawn into the war and fled to San Antonio. He was able to avoid recruitment by the Confederate army. A staunch abolitionist, he had reservations about how slave traders persecuted the unionist minority. To save himself, he fled to Matamoros, Mexico. He survived there by growing fruit and taking in other Texan refugees. He wrote a book, "White Terror in Texas and My Escape", as well as numerous articles for the "Quarterly Review" and the "British Review".

In 1862, he arrived in New Orleans, where he met the "Free People of Colour". This was a French-speaking métis elite who had better rights and higher social status than the African-American majority even before the war. He joined the editorial board of "L'Union", the abolitionist newspaper in French of this elite, and wrote pieces himself under the pseudonym "Cham". He also wrote under the pseudonym C.-J. Dalloz for its successor "La Tribune de la Nouvelle-Orléans", of which he eventually became director, editor-in-chief and administrator. Thanks to him, it was transformed into a bilingual French-English magazine.

The Civil War ended in 1865: slavery was abolished, but segregation was introduced. The "New Orleans Tribune" demanded equal rights for all American citizens and became a reference in radical republican circles. In 1867, Houzeau finally resigned as editor of the newspaper after internal disagreements. In 1868, he moved to Jamaica (then a British colony) and bought a plantation in Ross View, not far from the capital Kingston. There, out of the public eye, he lived in the company of William Lang, a métis teenager he met in New Orleans and raised as his son. At the same time, he made reading and writing classes available free to the local black population. Meanwhile, the offer to become professor of geology made by the Université libre de Bruxelles when Houzeau left Belgium was still valid. Yet it could not convince him to return to his homeland.

Triumphant return to Belgium

During his stay in the American wilderness, Houzeau had never stopped writing scientific articles and sending them to Europe. In 1873, he went to Peru to observe the constellations from the southern hemisphere. During his trip, he contracted yellow fever in Panama, which would prove fatal to him 15 years later. Nevertheless, he drew an aerial map and a book, "General Uranometry", for which he received the Five-yearly Prize of the Belgian Government for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. During the 1870s, there was a fierce debate about whether Houzeau could succeed Ad. Quetelet as head of the Royal Observatory. In 1876, through the support of King Leopold II, he was nevertheless appointed. He entrusted his farm to acquaintances and left for Belgium on 17 June 1876. He also became president of the [[The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium |Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium]] and director of the Class of Sciences in 1878.

Houzeau completely reorganised the Observatory: he hired more staff, separated the departments of astronomy and meteorology, ordered new instruments and created a spectroscopy section. Furthermore, he also expanded the institution's meteorological network: he introduced a daily weather bulletin and he split the observatory's annals into a first section devoted to meteorology and a second one on astronomy. Furthermore, he oversaw the enrichment of the library collections and the organisation of popular conferences. Finally, he gave the green light for the institution's transfer to Uccle. However, only in 1883 was a new building straightened there, which would not be completed until 1889.

In 1882, Houzeau organised two expeditions to observe the passage of Venus using a heliometer with unequal chimneys. The first settled in Santiago de Chile and the second in San Antonio, Texas. Houzeau personally led the latter expedition, and took advantage of the opportunity to visit Ross View. He communicated to the Academy the results of the parallax of the sun he had observed on 14 December 1883. Tired by the slow construction of the new observatory, Houzeau then settled in the south of France and resigned from his position at the Observatory. He remained at work for the last years of his life, instructing his collaborator Albert Lancaster to finish the publication of the General Bibliography of Astronomy. He ended his career as president of the Société royale belge de Géographie. He died on 10 July 1888 in Brussels.

Throughout his life, Houzeau refused all medals and honours offered to him. He also invariably refused a place on Liberal Party lists.

Works

From 1838 to 1841, Houzeau published his first articles in the newspaper l'Émancipation. They dealt with new developments in industrial processes, the use of machinery, major public works, communication routes, trade, agriculture, etc.

In 1839 he published his first scientific publication, Des turbines, de leur construction, le calcul de leur puissance et de leur application à l'industrie.
In 1844, he published a letter and two memoirs in the journal Astronomische Nachrichten about "a new effect of the aberration of light, especially for double stars that have their own motion"
In august of the same year he presented his study of the stars to The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium.
In 1845, using his own method, he calculated the elements and ephemerides of d'Arrest's Comet. At the same time, he published a note on the Vico comet in the bulletins of the Royal Academy. From 1849 to 1853, Houzeau published several notes on astronomy, geology, history and geography. He also wrote two treatises, the "physics of the globe and meteorology" in the Encyclopédie populaire in 1850 and in 1853, the Règles de climatologie.
In 1854, he published an important work, Essai d'une géographie physique de la Belgique au point de vue de l'histoire et de la description du globe.
In 1857, he published Histoire du sol de l'Europe, extending his influence in Belgian scientific circles. Houzeau took an active part in several newspapers and journals, including the Mémoires et publications de la Société des sciences, des arts et des lettres du Hainaut.
In 1880 the journal Ciel et terre was founded.
In 1882, Houzeau, in collaboration with Lancaster, published the first volume of the Bibliographie générale de l'astronomie. This volume collected memoirs included in academic collections. In 1887, the first volume of the second volume was published. It contains a historical introduction. Two years later, after Houzeau's death, Lancaster published the second volume, which consists of the independent works. Finally, the third volume was published in 1889 and contained a number of astronomical observations.

Patrimony

There is a monument dedicated to Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie in his hometown Mons, on Louiza square. It was erected two years after his death in 1890.

Publications

Des turbines, de leur construction, le calcul de leur puissance et de leur application à l’industrie, Bruxelles, Hauman et C^ie, 1839.

"Schreiben der Herrn Houzeau in Mons an den Heransgeber", in: Astronomische Nachrichten, t. 21, 1844, col. 243.

"D’un nouvel effet de l’aberration de la lumière particulier aux étoiles doubles qui possèdent un mouvement propre. Sur les systèmes binaires 61 Cygni et 70 p Ophiuchi", in: Astronomische Nachrichten, t. 21, 1844, col. 243-248, et col. 273-278.

physique du globe et météorologie, in Encyclopédie populaire, Brussel, Jamar, 1850.

Règles de climatologie ou Exposé sommaire des notions que la science possède sur le cours des saisons et sur les variations du temps, in Encyclopédie populaire, Brussel, Jamar, 1853.

"Méthode pour déterminer simultanément la latitude, la longitude, l’heure, l’azimut, par des passages observés dans deux verticaux", in Mémoires couronnés et mémoires des savants étrangers, publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, t. 25, 1854.

"L’espace et le temps", in : Revue trimestrielle, t. 3, 1856, p. 37-70.

"Étude sur la vie et la mort", in: Revue trimestrielle, 4e année, v. 3, 1857, p. 37-85.

Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux comparées à celle de l'homme, Brussel, 1872.

Le ciel mis à la portée de tout le monde, Brussel, 1873.

Étude de la nature de ses charmes et ses dangers.

Uranométrie générale, Brussel, Hayez, 1878. Bibliographie générale de l’astronomie, 1883-1889.

Annuaire populaire de Belgique, 1885-1888

He also published in the Mémoires de la société des sciences du Hainaut, dans la Revue trimestrielle and in the French-Belgian edition of the Revue britannique.

Publications at the academy
"Résultats de quelques expériences thermométriques et magnétiques exécutées dans la fosse n°2 du charbonnage du couchant du Flénu", in Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 11, 2^e deel, 1844, p. 283.

Essai d une géographie physique de la Belgique au point de vue de l’histoire et de la description du globe, Brussel, Hayez, 1854.

Histoire du sol de l’Europe, Brussel, 1857.

"De la symétrie de la forme des continents", in Revue trimestrielle, Brussel, 1855

"Éléments et éphéméride de la comète découverte par M D Arrest", in Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 12, 1^ère deel, 1845, p. 107.

"Sur la dernière comète découverte à Rome", in Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 12, 1^ère deel, 1845, p. 309.

"Sur les étoiles filantes périodiques du mois d août et en particulier sur leur apparition en 1842", in:Mémoires couronnés et mémoires des savants étrangers, publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, t. 18,

"Sur les étoiles filantes périodiques du mois d août et en particulier sur leur apparition en 1842", in: Mémoires couronnés et mémoires des savants étrangers, publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, t. 18, 1844-1845.

"Résumé de quelques observations astronomiques et météorologiques faites dans la zone surtempérée et entre les tropiques", in: Mémoires couronnés et mémoires des savants étrangers, publiés par l'Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, t. 25, 1875.

"Extrait des notes prises à la bibliothèque royale à Paris", in: Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 19, 3^ème partie, 1852, p. 498.

"Mémoire sur la direction et la grandeur des soulèvements qui ont affecté le sol de la Belgique", in: Mémoires de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 29, p. 360-399.

"Considérations sur l’étude des petits mouvements des étoiles", in: Mémoires de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 38, p. 197-295.

"Note sur les limites que dans l’état actuel de nos connaissances on peut assigner à la rotation d Uranus", in Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 23, 1^ère deel, 1856, p. 351.

"Note sur la détermination du rayon vecteur d une planète nouvelle", in: Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 8, 2^e Série, 1859, p. 172.

"Méthode pour mesurer la parallaxe horizontale des astres", in: Bulletins de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, t. 13, 2^e Série, 1862, p. 232.

Bibliography

BRIEN, Paul, "Houzeau", in Florilège des sciences en Belgique pendant le 19^e et le début du 20^e, Brussel, Académie royale de Belgique Classe des sciences, 1968, p. 69-96.

EVANS, D. S., "Jean-Charles Houzeau", in: Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, t. 19, p.1011

KOECLELENBERGH, André, "L’astronomie et la géophysique externe", in:Robert Halleux, Geert Vanpaemel, Jan Vandersmissen en Andrée Despy-Meyer (red.), Geschiedenis van de wetenschappen in België 1815-2000, Brussel: Dexia/La Renaissance du livre, 2001, vol. 1 p. 143-144.

LAGRANGE, E., "Notes: J.-C. Houzeau, météorologiste", in: Ciel et terre, t. 39, 1923, p. 95.

LAGRANGE, E., "Houzeau, biographie", in: Ciel et terre, t. 9-10, 1888-1890.

LIAGRE, Baptiste, "Notice sur Jean-Charles Houzeau, membre de l’Académie", in: Annuaire de l’Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 1890, p. 207-310.

MIGEOTTE, M., "Un portrait de Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie", in: Ciel et terre, t. 96, 1980, p. 82-89.

SWINGS, Pol, "Houzeau de Lehaie, (Jean-Charles)", in: Biographie Nationale, t. 29, Bruxelles : Établissements Émile Bruylant, Imprimeurs-Éditeurs, 1903, col. 694-699.

VANDERMISSEN, Jan, "L’exploration scientifique", in: Robert Halleux, Geert Vanpaemel, Jan Vandersmissen en Andrée Despy-Meyer (red.), Geschiedenis van de wetenschappen in België 1815-2000, Brussel: Dexia/La Renaissance du livre, 2001, vol. 1 p. 230-232

VERHAS, Pierre, Jean-Charles Houzeau et son temps, Brussel, Académie Royale de Belgique, 2002.

VELKHADEM Hossam, ISAAC Marie-Thérèse, De Mons vers le Nouveau Monde. Jean-Charles Houzeau, Lettres de Jamaïques (1868-1876), Brussel, Académie Royale de Belgique, 2015, p. XIV-LVIII.