1. John Betjeman, “Slough,” from the collection Continual Dew. The poem was published in 1937, before the city was subject to actual airraids during World War II.
2. Dreyer, Scientific Papers of Sir William Herschel, vol. 1, xlviii.
3. The house belonged to Mary’s mother, Mrs. Baldwin.
4. Samuel Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, March 24, 1784, in The Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Bruce Redford (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), vol. 3, 144.
5. Herschel Archive, Royal Astronomical Society.