Mary Somerville

-
Standard Name: Somerville, Mary
Birth Name: Mary Fairfax
Married Name: Mary Greig
Married Name: Mary Somerville
Eminent Scottish mathematician and scientist MS was best known as the author of four popular expository texts on science: Mechanism of the Heavens (1831), On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), Physical Geography (1848), and On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869). She also published the results of three of her experiments, an article on Halley's comet, and an autobiography.
Image from head-and-shoulders chalk drawing of Mary Somerville by James Rannie Swinton, 1848. She looks down, away from the viewer, wearing a white scarf and white ruffled cap, her dark smooth hair parted in the middle and pulled back. This was engraved as frontispiece to her "Physical Geography", vol. i, 1848.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Occupation Mary Augusta Ward
It was she who made the suggestion that the Oxford women's hall should be named after mathematician and scientist Mary Somerville . She worked furiously for the project until October 1879, when the new college...
Publishing Lucy Walford
LW 's lives of Jane Taylor , Elizabeth Fry , Hannah More , and Mary Somerville , each originally printed in Blackwood's Magazine, appeared together as Four Biographies from Blackwood in Edinburgh and London.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Reception Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan
Lord Melbourne offered Sydney, Lady Morgan , a Crown pension of three hundred pounds a year; she gladly accepted. She had been a close and supportive friend of Melbourne's first wife, Lady Caroline Lamb ...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Elizabeth Strutt
Women, says ES , must be essentially equal with men since both are made in God's image. But women's existing social position
Strutt, Elizabeth. The Feminine Soul. J. S. Hodson.
1
stems from man's superior physical strength, which has allowed him to seize...
Friends, Associates Emily Shirreff
ES 's circle of friends included Sir William Grove (inventor of the Grove battery), scientist Mary Somerville , lawyer and Royal Society president Lord Wrottesley , astronomer Sir George Biddell Airy , Sir John Herschel
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Rigby
While in Florence, she met Mary Somerville , the mathematician and astronomer.
Rigby, Elizabeth. Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake. Editor Smith, Charles Eastlake, AMS Press.
2: 104
Textual Production Elizabeth Rigby
Editor John Gibson Lockhart (who became a close friend) invited her to write for the periodical after being introduced to her work by John Murray . She was only the second woman to publish in...
Family and Intimate relationships Florence Nightingale
FN 's mother was born Frances (Fanny) Smith , the daughter of abolitionist and member of parliament William Smith . Fanny's grandfather was a wealthy London merchant. One of Fanny's acquaintances was Mary Somerville .
Dossey, Barbara Montgomery. Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer. Springhouse Corporation.
47
Nightingale, Florence. Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale. Editors Vicinus, Martha and Bea Nergaard, Harvard University Press.
13
Reception Mary Russell Mitford
She contacted several people (including the novelist Lady Dacre and the Whig hostess and diarist Lady Holland ) for support in her application, which was fuelled by the examples of the pensions granted to Sydney Morgan
Friends, Associates Harriet Martineau
HM 's social circle vastly expanded at this time until she knew virtually all the prominent people, particularly the political men, of her day. As she recorded in her Autobiography, however, she refused to...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Harriet Martineau
Among her subjects are Lady Byron (an occasion for HM to deplore Byron 's conduct and influence), Mary Berry , Mary Russell Mitford , Charlotte Brontë , Jane Marcet , Amelia Opie , Mary Somerville
Friends, Associates Jane Marcet
JM probably knew her husband's friends Edward Jenner and William Hyde Wollaston ; she certainly knew and corresponded with John Yelloy . She was a friend on her own account of Margaret Bryan ,
Marcet, Jane. “Introduction”. Chemistry in the Schoolroom: 1806, edited by Hazel Rossotti, AuthorHouse, p. i - xxi.
iii, v n6
Intertextuality and Influence Maria Elizabetha Jacson
Ann B. Shteir considers that the confident tone and command of materialhere anticipate Mary Somerville 's much more advanced scientific expositions of the 1830s, but that again the tone did not perfectly match the...
Friends, Associates Caroline Herschel
In old age CH corresponded with a distinguished fellow-scientist, Mary Somerville , and received an authorial gift of On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences with respect and gratitude.
Brock, Claire. The Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel’s astronomical ambition. Thriplow.
210
Reception Caroline Herschel
In old age CH was loaded with other honours, including honorary membership in the Royal Astronomical Society , along with Mary Somerville , in 1835. (Each woman said she felt it a particular honour to...

Timeline

11 October 1797: A British victory over the Dutch in the naval...

National or international item

11 October 1797

A British victory over the Dutch in the naval battle of Camperdown restored the reputation of the navy after the mutiny at Spithead earlier that year.

1835: Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville were...

National or international item

1835

Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville were awarded honorary memberships by the Royal Astronomical Society .

17 February 1847: The Whittington Club (named after the poor...

Building item

17 February 1847

The Whittington Club (named after the poor boy who became Lord Mayor of London) held its first meeting. Unlike traditional gentlemen's clubs, it welcomed women and lower-middle-class men.

2 May 1857: A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened...

Building item

2 May 1857

A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum .

1862: Educator Anne Sheepshanks was awarded honorary...

National or international item

1862

Educator Anne Sheepshanks was awarded honorary membership in the Royal Society .

April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...

Writing climate item

April 1879

James Murray —editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.

October 1879: Somerville College, one of the two first...

Building item

October 1879

Somerville College , one of the two first residential women's colleges at Oxford University, opened its doors to students.

1886: The working-class, popular, evangelical writer...

Women writers item

1886

The working-class, popular, evangelical writer Marianne Farningham (born Mary Ann Hearne or Hearn ) published as Eva Hope a book called Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era which reveals unexpected feminist sympathies.

1886: Eva Hope's Queens of Literature of the Victorian...

Women writers item

1886

Eva Hope 's Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era singled out Mary Somerville , Harriet Martineau , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Charlotte Brontë , George Eliot , and Felicia Hemans .

By 18 August 1888: Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from...

Women writers item

By 18 August 1888

Lucy Walford published Four Biographies from Blackwood's.

Texts

Somerville, Mary. A Preliminary Dissertation to the Mechanism of the Heavens by Mary Somerville. W. Clowes, 1832.
Somerville, Mary. “Art. VII. -1. Ueber den Halleyschen Cometen. Von Littrow. Wien, 1835. 2. Ueber den Halleyschen Cometen. Von Professor von Encke. Berliner Jarbuch, 1835”. Quarterly Review, Vol.
55
, pp. 195-33.
Somerville, Mary et al. “Experiments on the Transmission of Chemical Rays of the Solar Spectrum across Different Areas. Excerpt from a letter of Mrs Somerville’s to Mr. Arago”. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences, Vol.
3
, pp. 473-6.
Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace,. Mechanism of the Heavens. Translator Somerville, Mary, John Murray, 1831.
Somerville, Mary. On Molecular and Microscopic Science. John Murray, 1869.
Somerville, Mary. “On the Action of the Rays of the Spectrum on Vegetable Juices. ”. Abstracts of the Papers Communicated to the Royal Society of London from 1843 to 1850, Vol.
5
, p. 569.
Somerville, Mary. On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences. Arno Press, 1975.
Somerville, Mary. “On the Magnetizing Power of the more Refrangible Solar Rays”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol.
116
, pp. I: 132 - 9.
Somerville, Mary. Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville. Editor Somerville, Martha, John Murray, 1873.
Somerville, Mary. Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville. Editor Somerville, Martha, Roberts Brothers, 1874.
Somerville, Mary. Physical Geography. John Murray, 1848.
Somerville, Mary. Physical Geography. Lea and Blanchard, 1850.