Jean-Charles Houzeau

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

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.

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