Somerville

Somerville 1 City (1990 pop. 76,210), Middlesex co., E Mass., a residential and industrial suburb of Boston, on the Mystic River; settled 1630, set off from Charlestown 1842, inc. as a city 1871. There are diverse light manufactures, including chemicals. Historical attractions include the Old Powder House, used in the American Revolution; Prospect Hill Tower, where General Israel Putnam raised the first flag of the united colonies (1776) and which served as a prison camp in the Civil War; and Ploughed Hill, one of the fortified hills used in the siege of Boston (1775). 2 Residential borough (1990 pop. 11,632), seat of Somerset co., N central N.J., on the Raritan River; settled 1683, inc. as a borough 1909. Electronic parts and pharmaceuticals are made. Of interest are the Wallace House (residence of George Washington 1778-79) and the old Dutch parsonage (1751; now a museum).

Somerville, Mary (1780–1872). Mathematician and scientist. Born into genteel poverty in Scotland, Mary Fairfax married secondly her cosmopolitan medical cousin William Somerville (1812), leaving Edinburgh for London in 1816. Largely self-taught but with zest and capacity for learning, she had developed an interest in mathematics, which William encouraged, and an informal apprenticeship under the foremost philosophers led to a long and distinguished career, since scientific society was then wide open to the talented and well connected. Her mastery of French mathematics and expositional skill made important contributions to the modernization of its English counterpart, while On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834) helped define these more precisely; if not a creative scientist like Herschel or Faraday, her books brought knowledge and clarity to a broad public. Rational but compassionate, Mary Somerville was widely accepted as the leading scientific lady in Europe, honoured accordingly, and posthumously commemorated in the foundation of Somerville College, Oxford.

A. S. Hargreaves

Somerville, Mary (1780–1872). Mathematician and scientist. Born into genteel poverty in Scotland, Mary Fairfax married secondly her cosmopolitan medical cousin William Somerville (1812), leaving Edinburgh for London in 1816. She developed an interest in mathematics, and an informal apprenticeship under the foremost philosophers led to a long and distinguished career. Her books brought knowledge and clarity to a broad public. Mary Somerville was widely accepted as the leading scientific lady in Europe, and posthumously commemorated in the foundation of Somerville College, Oxford.