Mary Somerville

Mary Somerville (1780 to 1872) was a Scottish scientist, writer and polymath who studied mathematics and astronomy. Born Mary Fairfax at Jedburgh, the daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir William George Fairfax, she grew up at Burntisland in Fife and, after only a short spell of schooling, taught herself Latin and Greek and then algebra and geometry from Euclid's Elements and John Bonnycastle's Algebra. In 1804 she married Lieutenant Samuel Greig. In 1835 she and Caroline Herschel were elected the first female Honorary Members of the Royal Astronomical Society. Her second book, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, was reviewed by William Whewell, whose review contains the first use of the word scientist in English. Her signature stood first on John Stuart Mill's 1866 petition asking Parliament to give women the vote. Somerville College at the University of Oxford is named after her, and she appears on the Royal Bank of Scotland polymer ten pound note issued in 2017. Her obituary in The Morning Post called her the queen of science.