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Why did King George III give William Herschel an annual pension?
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William Herschel
Sir William Herschel, detail of an oil painting by L. Abbott, 1785; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
King George III granted William Herschel an annual pension of £200 in 1782 primarily as a result of Herschel's discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781.1
This discovery brought Herschel international fame and recognition from the Royal Society, which awarded him the Copley Medal. With the assistance of his friend Dr. William Watson, Jr., Herschel secured the royal pension, which allowed him to retire from his career in music and dedicate himself exclusively to astronomy as an astronomer to the King.1