While she was in Cape Colony, she and her husband made over a hundred botanical paintings of wild flowers, which they brought back to Europe for study.

Through her husband she met intellectual women like the mathematician Mary Somerville, who visited Margaret and John's house regularly, and the novelist Maria Edgeworth.

She also ensured that both her sons and daughters received equally solid educations, although the girls were not able to go away to school at eleven or attend university like their brothers.

[3]: 256–257 The voyage to Cape Colony was made so that her husband could catalogue the stars, nebulae, and other objects of the southern skies.

[5] When HMS Beagle called at Cape Town, Captain Robert FitzRoy and the young naturalist Charles Darwin visited Herschel on 3 June 1836.