This biography is part of the series Pioneering women in Earth Sciences – the link will take you to the main page.
Mary Somerville (née Fairfax) has been called the Queen of science, the person for whom the word scientist was coined (by William Whewell in his 1834 review of her book “Connections…”). She was a polymath, an intellectual tour de force at a time when teaching women to read and write, let alone think deeply, was frowned upon or ignored.
Much has been written about her, much of it paywalled. My principal sources of information have been the archived copies of her books, and the biographical – almost autobiographical account of her life by her daughter Martha Somerville. The Personal Recollections From Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville, With Selections from her Correspondence contains Mary’s recollections in addition to commentary by her daughter. It was first published by John Murray in 1873.
Mary Somerville’s life revolved around numbers, and how numbers expressed in mathematical form can unravel the mysteries of the universe. Mathematics, astronomy, physical geography, moral philosophy and emancipation – her intellect stretching in multiple directions. Courted by Britain’s and Europe’s best minds; honoured by multiple societies – 11 in Italy alone. Recognition as a brilliant mathematician and astronomer extended beyond the cloistered Royal societies to the soirées of 19th C society; even the British Crown condescended to grant her an annual pension of £200.
Mary Somerville’s achievements in adult life were in stark contrast to her Scottish Calvinist upbringing where, by age 10 she could barely read parts of the Bible or write a word. The only encouragement from her mother was to learn the household chores that were necessary to maintain a family home that was at the poorer-end of a rigid class structure. However, her father, a naval officer, insisted that Mary learn the rudiments of reading and writing and sent her to school for a year in which she was exposed to books other than the Bible. This perhaps was the beginning of an insatiable appetite for reading, some of which she had to do in secret for fear of approbation from other family members and acquaintances. Later stints at a school for grooming of young women (learning how to curtsy was important), and art school provided access to philosophical and mathematical texts (Euclid figured prominently during that period). She taught herself Latin (generally the prerogative of male students), and Greek so that she could read their philosophy, and immersed herself in mathematics – algebra, geometry, arithmetic.
Her first marriage in 1804 was a success according to her family, and a failure according to Mary. Samuel Greig had little time for women who thought and pondered the unknowns of the universe; his opinion of women, typical of that period, was that their intellectual capacity limited them to looking after the home and curtsying at the appropriate time. Fortunately, depending on how you look at it, he died three years later, leaving her with a modest estate and two children. She was free to study Newton’s Principia, and texts on astronomy and mathematics, with encouragement from John Playfair, a professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University and author of Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth (1802). Notably, she had also met Charles Lyell and his wife, who became good friends.
“We were intimate with Mr. (now Sir Charles) Lyell, who, if I mistake not, first met with his wife at our house, where she was extremely admired as the beautiful Miss Horner.” p. 144 Recollections.
John Playfair challenged her to look at some mathematical problems posed by a local Military College, and in 1811 she solved a Diophantine algebra problem (problems where there are more unknowns than equations to solve for them), for which she was awarded a silver medal. At this time she was digesting mathematical treatises by Poisson, LaPlace, Francœur, La Croix, Biot and others on topics ranging from differential and integral calculus, analytical geometry, finite differences, and probability theory. This was also her introduction to Pierre-Simon LaPlace’s five volume Traité de mécanique céleste (Celestial Mechanics – 1798 to 1825) – five publications that were to be pivotal in her emerging career.
Her second husband, Dr William Somerville, was a very different person who encouraged his wife’s predilection for maths and science. The marriage in 1812 required a move to London. It was there she met Ada Lovelace who she tutored in mathematics, and Charles Babbage of Calculating Engine fame. Mary wrote the first paper by a woman to be read at the Royal Society (London) in 1826; “The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar Spectrum” – it was read by her husband because she was not allowed to attend; this paper was one of several that she published on astronomy and mathematics.
Mary Somerville’s interests in pretty-well everything scientific meant that she was a quintessential networker. The list of scientists, artists, and people of letters that she counted as acquaintances or friends is a who’s who of 19th C thinkers that we associate with institutions of learning, particularly scientific investigation. Included in this coterie were La Place, Poisson, Ampère, Becquerel, John, William and Caroline Herschel, the Murchisons, the Lyell’s, Darwin, Hooker, Sedgwick, De la Beche, George Airy, John Murray the publisher, James Dana, and John Playfair, as well as society figures like Fenimor Cooper, Walter Scott, Madame de Rumford whose husband Antoine Lavoisier had met an untimely end on a French guillotine, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She became close friends with the Herschels, Lyells, and Murchisons.
She shared an interest in mineralogy with her husband – perhaps the order and symmetry of crystals expressed for her some grander vision of the universe. The Somervilles spent much time in Italy, particularly Naples, and were witness at close hand to the eruptions of Vesuvius (that included scaling its flanks).
“We were much interested in Vesuvius, which, for several months, was in a state of great activity. At first, there were only volumes of smoke and some small streams of lava, but these were followed by the most magnificent projections of red hot stones and rocks rising 2,000 feet above the top of the mountain. Many fell back again into the crater, but a large portion were thrown in fiery showers down the sides of the cone.” Recollections, 1868, p. 339
Mechanism of the Heavens
Mary Somerville wrote four books. The first, Mechanism of the Heavens, was written following a request from Lord Brougham (who became Lord High Chancellor) and published in 1831. Brougham clearly recognized her mathematical expertise and asked that she write a more readable version of Pierre LaPlace’s first two volumes of Traité de Mécanique Celeste. Somerville’s book was both a translation and evaluation where she explained LaPlace’s mathematics in common language. It immediately established her reputation as an intellectual tour de force. In 1835 she and Carolyn Herschel became the first Honorary Fellows of the Royal Astronomical Society (the RAS obituary, 1873).
“I was astonished at the success of my book; all the reviews of it were highly favourable; I received letters of congratulation from many men of science. I was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as Miss Caroline Herschel. To be associated with so distinguished an astronomer was in itself an honour. Mr. De Morgan, to whom I am indebted for many excellent mathematical works, was then secretary of the society, and announced to us the distinction conferred. The council of the Society ordered that a copy of the “Greenwich Observations” should be regularly sent to me.” p. 172 Recollections
Not to be outdone, the Fellows of the Royal Society (London) voted unanimously to fund the sculpting of a marble bust of Mary shortly after publication of Mechanism of the Heavens. She was never a member of the Royal Society (her husband William was), and was not permitted to attend Society meetings, but the Fellows did agree to display the bust in the main foyer.
“It was unanimously voted by the Royal Society of London, that my bust should be placed in their great Hall, and Chantrey was chosen as the sculptor.” Recollections.
[NB. The first women Fellows elected to the Royal Society were Kathleen Lonsdale (crystallographer) and Marjory Stephenson (biochemist) in 1945. The first woman to be nominated to the fellowship was Hertha Ayrton in 1902 but was turned down on the basis that she was a married woman and therefore had no legal status – a condition of marriage that continued until 1919 when the British parliament passed the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act.]
The influence this publication had is evidenced in a letter to Mary’s husband William from the well-known commentator and polymath William Whewell (November 2, 1831) – “I beg you to offer my best thanks to Mrs. Somerville for her kind present. I shall have peculiar satisfaction in possessing it as a gift of the author, a book which I look upon as one of the most remarkable which our age has produced, which would be highly valuable from anyone, and which derives a peculiar interest from its writer.”
Followed by a letter to Mary from Professor Peacock (Cambridge University, February 14th, 1832).
“I consider it to be a work which will contribute greatly to the extension of the knowledge of physical astronomy, in this country, and of the great analytical processes which have been employed in such investigations. It is with this view that I consider it to be a work of the greatest value and importance. Dr. Whewell and myself have already taken steps to introduce it into the course of our studies at Cambridge, and I have little doubt that it will immediately become an essential work to those of our students who aspire to the highest places in our examinations.” Recollections p. 171.
Other accolades and honours followed:
“I was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy at Dublin, of the Bristol Philosophical Institution, and of the Société de Physique et d’Histoire Naturelle of Geneva, which was announced to me by a very gratifying letter from Professor Prevost.” Recollection p. 175
“I was elected an honorary member of the Geographical and Statistical Society of New York, U.S. on the 15th May, 1857, and on the 15th October, 1869, I was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia, for Promoting Useful Knowledge. I shall ever be most grateful for these honours.”
She wrote three more books (freely available on Internet Archive and Gutenberg Library): The Connection of the Physical Sciences (1834); Physical Geography (1848) On Molecular and Microscopic Science (1869)
The ‘Connections’, or ‘Connexions’ became an instant classic for explanations in common language of the interrelations among many branches of science; she published 9 editions, updating each with the current discoveries. The book included chapters on astronomy and in the 6th Edition (1842) she discusses the mathematical relationships among the planets and the gravitational perturbations of their orbits, suggesting that there may be another planet beyond Uranus (discovered by William Herschel on 13 March 1781), a statement that presaged the discovery of Neptune. Neptune was subsequently discovered and its orbit calculated independently by Urbain Le Verrier, and John Couch Adams in 1846. In her Recollections, Mary Somerville remarked thus:
“This young man and M. Leverrier, the celebrated French astronomer, had separately calculated the orbit of Neptune and announced it so nearly at the same time, that each country claims the honour of the discovery. Mr. Adams told Somerville that the following sentence in the sixth edition of the “Connexion of the Physical Sciences,” published in the year 1842, put it into his head to calculate the orbit of Neptune. “If after the lapse of years the tables formed from a combination of numerous observations should be still inadequate to represent the motions of Uranus, the discrepancies may reveal the existence, nay, even the mass and orbit of a body placed for ever beyond the sphere of vision.” That prediction was fulfilled in 1846, by the discovery of Neptune revolving at the distance of 3,000,000,000 of miles from the sun.” Recollections, p. 289.
Physical Geography became her most popular book. Six editions were published during her lifetime.
Physical Geography
“Geology, which has now been so far advanced as a science, was still in its infancy. Professor Playfair and Mr. Hutton had written on the subject; and in my gay young days, when Lady Helen Hall was occasionally my chaperone, I had heard that Sir James Hall had taken up the subject, but I did not care about it; I am certain that at that time I had never heard the word Geology. I think it was now, on going with Somerville to see the Edinburgh Museum, that I recognised the fossil plants I had seen in the coal limestone on the sands at the Links of Burntisland. Ultimately Geology became a favourite pursuit of ours,…” Recollections, p.93
This book was an expression of her interest in the natural world, its landforms, geology, fauna and flora –interests informed by early childhood excursions. The word geology was barely mentioned in literature during her early formative years (late 18th C). But with James Hutton’s opus and John Playfair’s subsequent précis, and the publications by Charles Lyell and others following in good order, she was able to include descriptions and commentary on many of the current 19th C theories and observations concerning landforms, continents, and sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic processes.
“The authors geological information rests on the authority of those distinguished authors whose works are in the hands of every one, namely, Baron Cuvier, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir Henry de la Beche, Professor Owen, and the Memoirs of the Geological Society.” Somerville, Physical Geography, Footnote 14.
Chapters 1 and 2 are summaries of the more global aspects of geology – the kinds of rocks, how they form, the continents and oceans, the massive forces responsible for the creation of mountain belts, volcanic eruptions (she witnessed several eruption on Vesuvius) and earthquakes, that set the stage for subsequent chapters on the different regions of Earth, its landscapes, fauna and flora.
The first edition of Physical Geography makes several references to the discoveries made by Charles Darwin during his voyages, but reference to Darwin’s evolution theory (1859) had to wait for later editions. One consequence of this publication was the awarding of the Patron’s medal in 1869, the highest recognition by the Royal Geographical Society – added to her long list of accolades, medals, and honorary memberships. Ironically, she was never admitted as a Fellow of that Society during her lifetime.
Although debates about the admission of women to the Royal Geographical Society had taken place earlier in the 19th C, they had to wait until 1892-93 when a group of 22 were admitted. However, dissension amongst the male Fellows effectively terminated further admission of women until 1913 (Evans et al., 2013). The rationales for their dissent were much the same as those used by other learned societies that forbade the entry of women to their ranks –a lack of intellectual prowess (ironic when you have given a person one of your most prestigious awards), women would lower the tone of formal gatherings, they would upset the ‘old boy’ network, they lacked the ability to withstand the rough and tumble of debates, and in Britain their status as non-persons if they were married –
Equally ironic and disheartening that 150 years later battles for equity still rage.
References and other links
Pierre LaPlace, 1799. Traité de mécanique celeste, v. 1.
Mary Somerville, 1826. The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar Spectrum. Royal Society of London, February.
Mary Somerville, 1831. Mechanism of the Heavens. John Murray.
Mary Somerville, 1834. The Connection of the Physical Sciences.
Mary Somerville, 1848. Physical Geography.
Mary Somerville, 1869. On Molecular and Microscopic Science.
Atlantic Monthly: Mary Somerville. (May 1860), 568-571.
Martha Somerville, 1873. Personal Recollections From Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville, With Selections from her Correspondence. John Murray.
Sarah L. Evans, Innes M. Keighren, Avril Maddrell, 2013. Coming of age? Reflections on the centenary of women’s admission to the Royal Geographical Society. Geographical Journal, v. 179, No. 4.
University of Oxford. Mary Somerville (1780-1872) – Scientist and polymath.
Elisabetta Strickland, 2017. Mary Fairfax Somerville, Queen of Science. American Mathematical Society.
