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Great Women's Lives

A Celebration in Obituaries

The History Press

MARY SOMERVILLE

Scottish mathematician and astronomer who pioneered the role of women in science

DECEMBER 2, 1872

Mary Somerville died on Friday in the neighbourhood of Naples, where she had of late years taken up her residence. Had she lived to the 26th of the present month she would have attained her 83rd year. Mary Somerville, or, to give her maiden name, Mary Fairfax, was a lady of good Scottish ancestry, being the daughter of the late Vice-Admiral Sir William George Fairfax, who was a cadet of the noble Scottish house of Lord Fairfax, and who commanded His Majesty's ship Venerable at the Battle of Camperdown. She was born on the 26th of December, 1789; her mother was Margaret, daughter of Mr Samuel Charters, Solicitor of Customs for Scotland. All that is known of her early life is that she was a great reader, even from childhood, and that she was brought up at a school at Musselburgh, in the vicinity of Edinburgh.

Before many of the most distinguished cultivators of physical science were born, Mrs Somerville had already taken her place among the original investigators of nature. In the year 1826 she presented to the Royal Society a paper on "The magnetizing power of the more refrangible solar rays," in which she detailed her repetitions of the experiments made by Morichini of Rome, and Bérard of Montpelier. The paper had for its object to prove whether solar light is a source of magnetic power. By means of a prism the component rays of a sunbeam were separated, and those which are now known as the chymical or actinic rays were allowed to fall upon delicately poised needles of various sizes which had been previously proved to be devoid of magnetism. In every instance the steel exhibited the true magnetic character after an exposure of several hours to the violet light. Experiments were then made by covering unmagnetic needles with blue glass shades and placing them in the sun, and in all cases they became magnetic. From these experiences Mrs Somerville concluded that the more refrangible rays of the solar spectrum, even in our latitude, have a strong magnetic influence. This communication was printed in the Philosophical Transactions at the time; it led to much discussion on a very difficult point of experimental inquiry, which was only set at rest some years later by the researches of two German electricians, Riess and Moser, who showed that the action upon the magnetic needle was not caused by the violet rays.

In 1831 or 1832 Mrs Somerville published her Mechanism of the Heavens. This book, her only strictly astronomical work, which is largely derived from Laplace's celebrated treatise, La Mécanique Céleste, and is understood to have been originally suggested by Lord Brougham, was originally proposed by its author as one of the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; but, being moulded on too large a scale for their series, it was given to the world in an independent shape. A few years later her name became more widely known by her Connexion of the Physical Sciences, which obtained the praise of the Quarterly Review as "original in plan and perfect in execution," and, indeed, "a true 'Kosmos' in the nature of its design and in the multitude of materials collected and condensed into the history which it affords of the physical phenomena of the universe." This she followed up with her Physical Geography, which, as its name imports, comprises the history of the earth in its whole material organization. These two works, in addition to their popularity in this country, as testified by the many editions through which they have passed, have been translated into several foreign languages; and their author's services to geographical science were recognized in 1869 by the award of the Victoria medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In the same year she gave to the world her Molecular and Microscopic Science, a work which, to use the expression of a writer in the Edinburgh Review, "contains a complete conspectus of some of the most recent and most abstruse researches of modern science, and describes admirably not only the discoveries of our day in the field of physics and chymistry, but more especially the revelations of the microscope in the vegetable and animal worlds."

The publication of such a work as that last mentioned by a lady in, we believe, her eightieth year is without a parallel in the annals of science. In it that which most forcibly strikes the reader is the extraordinary power of mental assimilation of scientific facts and theories which is displayed by its author. In it Mrs Somerville first gives us a clear account of the most recent discoveries in organic chymistry, in the elementary condition of matter, and tells us of the latest researches into the synthesis of organic carbon compounds. She next leads us on to the relations of polarization of light in crystalline form, and, quitting the subject of molecular physics with an account of the phenomena of spectrum analysis as applied to the stars and nebulae, she begins the consideration of the microscopic structure of the vegetable world; then passing in review the whole of the organisms from algae to exogenous plants, she lands us in her second volume among the functions of the animal frame in its lowest organizations, and describes the morphology of the various groups of animals from the protozoa to the mollusc. In thus traversing this immense field of modern scientific inquiry, Mrs Somerville does not attempt to generalize to any great extent, much less to bring forward any original observations of theories of her own; but, as she modestly hints in her preface, she has simply given in plain and clear language a résumé of some of the most interesting results of the recent investigations of men of science.

For some few years before her death Mrs Somerville was in the receipt of a literary pension, bestowed upon her in recognition of her services to science. This was the nation's tribute to her worth. But among men of science a far higher value than pecuniary grants can have is set upon those rewards which can be bestowed only by such as can appreciate the labours and aims of a toiler in the scientific field. And these Mrs Somerville received; the Geographical Society, as we have said, awarded her its medal; the Royal Astronomical Society elected her, in 1834, one of its honorary Fellows, the same honour being at the same time bestowed upon Miss Caroline Herschel — the only two ladies on whom such a distinction was ever conferred. The Fellows of the Royal Society also signified their appreciation of her works and their personal regard for their author by subscribing for a bust of Mrs Somerville, which Chantrey executed, and which the Duke of Sussex publicly presented to the Society in 1842, in his own name and in that of the subscribers. This monument adorns the Library of the Royal Society.

Mrs Somerville was twice married. Early in life she became the wife of Mr Samuel Greig, who is described in Burke's Peerage as "a Captain and Commissioner in the Russian Navy." Her union with him became the means of developing her latent scientific powers, as he took great pleasure in mathematical inquiry, and carefully initiated her in both the theory of mathematics and their practical application. Her second husband was Dr William Somerville, a member of a good old family of Scottish extraction.

Mary Somerville, mathematician and scientist, was born on December 26, 1780. She died on November 29, 1872, aged 91

HARRIET MARTINEAU

Philosopher, critic, biographer and novelist whose large literary output was achieved despite ill health and hearing loss

JUNE 29, 1876

So far back as the year 1832, Miss Lucy Aikin wrote to Dr Channing, "You must know that a great new light has arisen among English women," and a still greater authority, Lord Brougham, remarked to a friend about the same time: "There is at Norwich a deaf girl who is doing more good than any man in the country. You may have seen the name and some of the productions of Harriet Martineau in the 'Monthly Repository;' but what she is gaining glory by is a series of 'Illustrations of Political Economy' in some tales published periodically, of which nine or ten have appeared. Last year she called on me several times, and I was struck with marks of such an energy and resolution in her as, I thought, must command success in some line or other of life, though it did not then appear in what direction. She has a vast store of knowledge on many deep and difficult subjects — a wonderful store for a person scarcely 30 years old; and her observation of common things must have been extraordinarily correct as well as rapid. I dined yesterday in the company of Mr Malthus and Miss Martineau, who are great allies. She pursues her course steadily, and I hear much praise of her new tale on the Poor Laws. I fear, however, that it is the character of her mind to adopt extreme opinions upon most subjects, and without much examination. She has now had a full season of London 'lionizing,' and, as far as one can judge, it has done her nothing but good. She loves her neighbours the better for their good opinion of her; and, I believe, she thinks the more humbly of herself for what she has seen of other persons of talent and merit."

Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich on the 12th of June, 1802. In her biography of Mrs Opie she gives us a picture of life in this eastern cathedral city in the early part of the 19th century when its Bishop was the liberal and enlightened Dr Bathurst; and she tells us how the proclivities of the city, alike towards clerical exclusiveness and to intellectual stagnation, were largely corrected by the social gatherings of one or two highly-cultivated families, and by a large infusion of French and Flemish manufacturing industry, the result of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Martineaus were among the families whom that measure drove to our shores; and at Norwich they had flourished for the best part of a century, part of the family devoting itself to silk weaving on a large scale, while other members were in practice as surgeons, enjoying a high reputation in the city of their adoption. Not much is known of Harriet's father, who died early, except that he had eight children, of whom she was the youngest. Her education was conducted under the supervision of her uncle, one of the most eminent surgeons in the east of England, and who took every means to give his nephews and nieces the best instruction Norwich could afford. Like most persons of a high order of intellect, however, young Harriet Martineau at an early age resolved to walk alone, and not in educational leading-strings, and practically taught herself history and politics while her brothers and sisters were reading their "Goldsmith" and "Mrs Markham." Not that she had any lack of teachers or instructors; but from a child she resolved to practise the virtue of self-reliance and to fit herself for life in earnest by such literary exertions as sooner or later, she felt, would at least make her independent.

She was barely of age when she appeared before the public as an author. Her first work, however, was not one which gave any great scope to literary talents, and must be regarded rather as a proof of her internal piety, on the model of the Unitarian school in which she had been brought up, than as a criterion of her intellectual ability. It was entitled "Devotional Exercises for the Use of Young Persons," and was published in 1823. It was, however, the harbinger of a long series of far more important works which were destined to appear thenceforth in rapid succession. In 1824 and the following year Miss Martineau came before the public as the authoress of two tales, entitled "Christmas Day," and a sequel to it, "The Friend;" these she followed up with several other stories all more or less dealing with social subjects, and more especially illustrating by argument and by example the rights and interests of the working classes. The best known of these are "Principle and Practice," "The Rioters," "The Turn Out," "Mary Campbell," and "My Servant Rachel." It is needless to add that in these the work of helping the weaker and poorer members of society is not only enforced upon the wealthier classes as a duty, but shown to be no less the common interest of both the one and the other. These publications carry down the story of the life of our author to about the year 1830 or 1831.

With this period we come to a new era in the literary career of Miss Martineau. This is shown by her choice of more elevated subjects, and possibly a more elevated tone is to be discovered in her treatment of them also. Her first publication after that date was a charming collection of "The Traditions of Palestine," and her next, if we remember right, her "Five Years of Youth." About the same time also she made her name known far more widely than before by gaining three prizes for as many separate Essays on subjects proposed by the Unitarian Association. The subjects were independent of each other, though mutually connected in their plan; and on opening the sealed envelopes, containing the names of the writers, it was found that on each of the three subjects the successful competitor was a young lady, just 30 years of age, named Harriet Martineau. The three subjects were respectively, The Faith as unfolded by many Prophets; Providence, as manifested through the dealings of God with Israel; and the Essential Faith of the Universal Church. These Essays were published, and thoroughly established the writer's claim to the credit of being a profound thinker and reasoner upon religious as well as on social questions.

The next subject to which she applied her fertile and versatile pen was a series of "Illustrations of Political Economy," in which she attempted to popularize, by familiar and practical illustrations and examples, the principles which — speaking generally — Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, and Romilly, and other men of original minds, had laid down in an abstract and strictly philosophical manner. These "Illustrations" extended to above 20 numbers; they were afterwards republished in a collective form, and, having since been translated into French and German, have helped perhaps more than any other work of modern times to spread abroad, in other countries as well as in our own, a knowledge of that science which till our own day had been so little known and studied. These she followed up by two similar series, on cognate subjects — "Illustrations of Taxation" and "Illustrations of Poor Laws and Paupers."

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Excerpted from Great Women's Lives by Sue Corbett. Copyright © 2014 The Times. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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