Abstract
Mary Somerville’s life as a mathematician and savant in nineteenth-century Great Britain was heavily influenced by her gender; as a woman, her access to the ideas and resources developed and circulated in universities and scientific societies was highly restricted. However, her engagement with learned institutions was by no means nonexistent, and although she was 90 before being elected a full member of any society (Societa Geografica Italiana, 1870), Somerville (Figure 1) nevertheless benefited from the resources and social networks cultivated by such institutions from as early as 1812. A key intermediary between Somerville and these societies was her husband, Dr. William Somerville, whose mediation was vital to her access to knowledge and her subsequent career as a scientific author. In this paper we will consider how spousal cooperation enabled the overcoming of gendered barriers to scientific institutions in the nineteenth century.
Highlights
Mary Somerville’s life as a mathematician and savant in nineteenth-century Great Britain was heavily influenced by her gender; as a woman, her access to the ideas and resources developed and circulated in universities and scientific societies was highly restricted
National societies that aimed to promote mathematics were not founded until near the end of Somerville’s life, namely the London Mathematical Society in 1865 and the Societe Mathematique de France in 1872, and again there was a significant delay before women were elected members
FRAS, Alice Grace Cook FRAS, Irene Elizabeth Toye Warner FRAS, and Fiammetta Wilson FRAS) respectively. 3The first woman elected to the London Mathematical Society was Charlotte Scott, in 1881, and Sofya Kovalevkaya was the first woman elected to the Societe Mathematique de France, in 1882. 4Throughout this paper, ‘‘polite’’ will be used to refer to the social status of the circles in which Somerville moved; namely the landed gentry [49, 13]. 5Another demographic often excluded from scientific institutions was people of low social status
Summary
Mary Somerville’s life as a mathematician and savant in nineteenth-century Great Britain was heavily influenced by her gender; as a woman, her access to the ideas and resources developed and circulated in universities and scientific societies was highly restricted. Her engagement with learned institutions was by no means nonexistent, and she was 90 before being elected a full member of any society (Societa Geografica Italiana, 1870), Somerville (Figure 1) benefited from the resources and social networks cultivated by such institutions from as early as 1812. Trans.) [4, 154–155], while Caroline Herschel (1750–1848), who was never affiliated even as an honorary member, had thrice published descriptions of her discoveries of new comets. For women, membership itself could be the least significant interaction with these institutions
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