Mary Somerville
Mary Somerville | |
---|---|
![]() Mary Somerville | |
Born | Jedburgh, Scotland | 26 December 1780
Died | 28 November 1872 Naples, Italy | (aged 91)
Nationality | Scottish |
Scientific career | |
Fields | science writer polymath |
Mary Fairfax Somerville (26 December 1780 – 28 November 1872) was a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women's participation in science was discouraged. She studied mathematics and astronomy, and was the second woman scientist to receive recognition in the United Kingdom after Caroline Herschel.
Early life
She was the daughter of Irish Vice-Admiral Sir William George Fairfax[1] (scion of a distinguished family of Fairfaxes), and was related to several prominent Scottish houses through her mother.[2] She was born at the manse of Jedburgh, in the Borders, the house of her mother's sister, wife of Dr Thomas Somerville (1741–1830), author of My Own Life and Times.[2] Her childhood home was at Burntisland, Fife.[1] Returning from sea, her father considered the 10-year-old Mary "a savage" and sent her for a year of tuition at Musselburgh, an expensive boarding school.[2] She returned being able to read, and able to write, albeit poorly; she could perform simple arithmetic and knew a little French.[3]
Following this, she was informally taught elementary geography and astronomy, but found her education limited compared to what her brother might receive. To supplement this, therefore, she was taught Latin by her uncle, Dr Thomas Somerville, who described her as an eager student.[1] Once, listening in to her brother receive tutoring in mathematics, she answered when he could not; impressed, his tutor allowed her to continue with lessons unofficially. She also studied art with Alexander Nasmyth in Edinburgh, who taught her about perspective – inspired, she managed to obtain a copy of Euclid's Elements of Geometry, and began to teach herself from it.[1] Meanwhile, she continued in the traditional roles of the daughter of a well-connected family, attending social events and maintaining a sweet and polite manner – she was nicknamed "the Rose of Jedburgh" among Edinburgh socialites.[4] Around this time, however, following the death of her sister at age ten, her parents forbade Mary from further study, believing it had contributed to her sister's death. This did not deter her from studying on her own, although she had to continue in secret.[4]
In 1804 she married her distant cousin, the Russian Consul in London, Captain Samuel Greig, son of Admiral Samuel Greig. They had two children, one of whom, Woronzow Greig, became a barrister and scientist.[5] They lived in London, and it was not a happy time for Somerville – although she could study more easily, her husband did not think much of women's capacity to pursue academic interests. She returned home to Scotland upon his death in 1807.[4]
Her inheritance from Greig gave her the freedom to pursue intellectual interests. In 1812 she married another cousin, Dr William Somerville (1771–1860), inspector of the Army Medical Board, who encouraged and greatly aided her in the study of the physical sciences. They had four children. During her marriage she made the acquaintance of the most eminent scientific men of the time, among whom her talents had attracted attention. Before she had acquired general fame, Laplace told her, "There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing" (of course, Somerville was first and third of these three).
Translation and writing
Having been requested by Lord Brougham to translate for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge the Mécanique Céleste of Laplace, she greatly popularized its form, and its publication in 1831, under the title of The Mechanism of the Heavens, at once made her famous. She stated "I translated Laplace's work from algebra into common language".
Her other works are the On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), Physical Geography (1848), which was commonly used as a text book until the early 20th century,[6] and Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869).[1] In 1835, she and Caroline Herschel became the first women members of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1838 she and her husband went to Italy, where she spent much of the rest of her life. In 1868, four years before her death at age 91, she signed John Stuart Mill's unsuccessful petition for female suffrage.[7]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Vonwiller-family.jpg/250px-Vonwiller-family.jpg)
Much of the popularity of her writings was due to her clear and crisp style and the underlying enthusiasm for her subject which pervaded them. From 1835 she received a pension of £300 from government. In 1869 she was awarded the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.[8]
Somerville's writing influenced James Clerk Maxwell and John Couch Adams. Her discussion of a hypothetical planet perturbing Uranus, in the 6th edition of On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1842), led Adams to look for and discover Neptune.
Death and legacy
She died at Naples on 28 November 1872, and is buried there in the English Cemetery, Naples.[9] In the following year there appeared her autobiographical Personal Recollections, consisting of reminiscences written during her old age, and of great interest both for what they reveal of her own character and life and the glimpses they afford of the literary and scientific society of bygone times.
Commemoration
Somerville College, Oxford, was named after Mary Somerville, as is Somerville House, Burntisland, where she lived for a time[10] and Somerville House, a high school for girls in Brisbane, Australia. One of the Committee Rooms of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh has been named after her. The term "scientist" was coined by William Whewell in an 1834 review of her On the Connexion of the Sciences.
Somerville Island (74°44'N, 96°10'W), a small island in Barrow Strait, Nunavut, was named after her by Sir William Edward Parry in 1819 during the first of the four Arctic expeditions under his command.
5771 Somerville (1987 ST1) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on 21 September 1987 by E. Bowell at Lowell Observatory Flagstaff, Arizona, and named for her.
Somerville crater is a small lunar crater in the eastern part of the Moon. It lies to the east of the prominent crater Langrenus, and was designated Langrenus J before being given her name by the International Astronomical Union. It is one of a handful of lunar craters named after a woman.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e Mary T Brück. "Mary Somerville, mathematician and astronomer of underused talents". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 206 (4): 201.
- ^ a b c Somerville, Mary Fairfax Greig. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 11 & 12. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 521.
- ^ Somerville, Mary Fairfax Greig. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 11 & 12. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 521–522.
- ^ a b c Somerville, Mary Fairfax Greig. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 11 & 12. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 522.
- ^ Appleby, J. H. (1999). "Woronzow Greig (1805-1865), F.R.S., and his scientific interests" (PDF). Notes and Records of the Royal Society. 53 (1): 95–106. doi:10.1098/rsnr.1999.0065. Retrieved 2007-08-19.
- ^ http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Somerville.html
- ^ Arianrhod, Robyn (November 29, 2012). "What sort of science do we want?". OUPblog. Oxford University Press. Retrieved November 29, 2012.
- ^ Freeman, T. W. (1966), "Baker, J.N.L. The history of geography" (PDF), Cahiers de géographie du Québec, vol. 10 No 20, Erudit, p. 352, retrieved 2009-06-26
- ^ Giancarlo Alisio, Il Cimitero degli Inglesi, Naples, 1993, ISBN 88-435-4520-5
- ^ Somerville House
References
- Somerville, Martha. Personal Recollections, From Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874. (written by her daughter) Reprinted by AMS Press (January 1996), ISBN 0-404-56837-8 Fully accessible from Google Books project.
- Neeley, Kathryn A. Mary Somerville: Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
- Fara, Patricia (Sep 2008). "Mary Somerville: a scientist and her ship". Endeavour. 32 (3). England: 83–5. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.05.003. PMID 18597849.
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External links
- "Mary Fairfax Somerville", Biographies of Women Mathematicians, Agnes Scott College
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Mary Somerville", MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, University of St Andrews
- Mary Somerville, an article by Maria Mitchell, Atlantic Monthly 5 (May 1860), 568-571.
- Women in Science
- Bibliography from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- "Archival material relating to Mary Somerville". UK National Archives.
- Catalogue of correspondence and papers of Mary Somerville and of the Somerville and related families, c.1700-1972, held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
- Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville, her autobiography, at Project Gutenberg
- 1780 births
- 1872 deaths
- 19th-century British mathematicians
- Scottish science writers
- Scottish astronomers
- Scottish mathematicians
- Women mathematicians
- Scottish translators
- People from Jedburgh
- People from Burntisland
- 19th-century women scientists
- 19th-century Scottish people
- British women scientists
- Scottish expatriates in Italy