1827 births

Jean_Abraham_Chrétien_Oudemans

Jean Abraham Chrétien Oudemans (Amsterdam, 16 December 1827 – Utrecht, 14 December 1906) was a Dutch astronomer. He was the director of the Utrecht Observatory from 1875 until 1898, when he retired.
Oudemans was born in Amsterdam, son of the poet, teacher and philologist Anthonie Oudemans Sr. and Jacoba Adriana Hammecker. He entered Leiden University when he was just 16 as a student of the noted astronomer Frederik Kaiser. He became a high school teacher in Leiden when he was just 19 (1846). The next six years he worked on his dissertation on the determination of the latitude of Leiden. Next he studied asteroids and variable stars, meanwhile hoping for an academic appointment. In 1855 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He married Pauline Adriana Verdam (the daughter of a well-known mathematics professor Gideon Jan Verdam ) in 1856. In the same year he was appointed a professor at Utrecht University and became the first director of its observatory. However, his interest drew him towards geography. He traveled to the Dutch East Indies as head surveyor, and worked in that capacity for 18 years, publishing his works on the triangulation of the island of Java in six books.In 1874 he organized an astronomical expedition to the island of Réunion to observe the transit of Venus but, due to bad weather, the results were disappointing.Oudemans crater on Mars was named in his honor.
A brother was the botanist Corneille Antoine Jean Abram Oudemans. One of his sons was Anthonie Cornelis Oudemans Jzn, one of the fathers of cryptozoology.

Charles_Wolf_(astronomer)

Charles Joseph Étienne Wolf (9 November 1827 in Vorges – 4 July 1918) was a French astronomer.
In 1862, Urbain Le Verrier offered him a post as assistant at the Paris Observatory.
In 1867 he and Georges Rayet discovered Wolf–Rayet stars.
He was elected to the positions of Vice-President (1897) and President (1898) of the French Academy of Sciences.

Alexander_Spengler

Alexander Spengler (20 March 1827 – 11 January 1901) was a Swiss physician of German origin and the first physician specializing in tuberculosis in Davos.
Spengler was born as the eldest son of Johann Philipp Spengler, a teacher at a school in Mannheim. Starting in the autumn of 1846, he studied five terms at the University of Heidelberg.
Spengler had taken part in the Baden Revolution of 1848/1849 as a law student. After the defeat of the revolution, he was expatriated for desertion from the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1850. He fled to Zurich, where he studied medicine. In 1853, the stateless refugee got a job in Davos, which was remote at the time. His observation that pulmonary tuberculosis did not occur in Davos and that sick people returning home improved, marked the beginning of the development of the modern high-altitude health resort of Davos. Spengler was able to acquire Swiss citizenship in 1855.
Spengler was the father of Carl Spengler and Lucius Spengler, both pulmonologists in Davos.

Jules_Henri_Debray

Jules Henri Debray (26 July 1827, in Amiens – 19 July 1888, in Paris) was a French chemist.
In 1847 he began his studies at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and several years later became an instructor at the Lycée Charlemagne (1855). From 1875 onward, he taught classes in chemistry at the École Normale Supérieure, where in 1881 he succeeded Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville as professor of chemistry.He is best remembered for his collaborative research with Sainte-Claire Deville involving the properties of platinum metals, in particular, the melting of platinum and its alloys. Their process for melting platinum remained the chosen method until induction furnaces became available decades later. In 1860, the two scientists were the first to melt an appreciable quantity of iridium.During his career, Debray served as an assayer for the Bureau de Garantie of Paris, was vice-president of the Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale and was a member of the Académie des sciences.

Alfred_Grévin

Alfred Grévin (28 January 1827 – 5 May 1892) was a 19th-century caricaturist, best known during his lifetime for his caricature silhouettes of contemporary Parisian women. He was also a sculptor, cartoonist, and designed costumes and sets for popular theater.
He founded with journalist Arthur Meyer the Musée Grévin, a waxwork museum.

Johanna_Spyri

Johanna Louise Spyri (German: [joˈhana ˈʃpiːri]; née Heusser [ˈhɔʏsər]; 12 June 1827 – 7 July 1901) was a Swiss author of novels, notably children's stories. She wrote the popular book Heidi. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zürich, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels.