 | Mary Anning (1799-1847), one of the first significant palaeontologists, was involved in the discovery of a fossil ichthyosaur that was virtually complete. She is credited with the first discovery of a plesiosaur. Anning's family sold fossils that were uncovered by them in Lyme Regis. Her knowledge was extensive and widely admired by her contemporaries. |
 | Maria Edgeworth [1767 - 1849], a writer of moral tales for children, was concerned about the appropriate nature of instruction for children. She advocated the advancement of knowledge (with some limits) in Practical Education (1798) and in her extensive fiction, including Belinda (1801). |
| Emily Lawless's Biography: Etext |
 | Born in 1809, six months after Charles Darwin, Margaret Scott Gatty (d. 1873) gained fame as a writer for children and as a scientific amateur. The enduringly successful Parables from Nature, a collection of wonderful stories drawn from natural history and published in various "series" ranging from 1856-1861, could be found on the reading list of virtually every middle-class child in the latter part of the 19th century. While Gatty continued to write for children, she also published the History of British Sea-Weeds (1863), perhaps in an effort to stake a claim in the elevated discourse of serious scientific amateurs. Gatty's Parables, reflect her opposition to evolutionary theory while also evincing a dedication to the notion that scientific curiosity is can satisfy both the intellect and the soul. |
 | Caroline Herschel(1750-1848) became an astronomer while working with her brother William Herschel, a former musician whose astronomical researches led to the discovery of Uranus. Caroline Herschel carried out much of William's mathematical calculations and was herself responsible for discovering a number of comets. Caroline also took responsibility for the education of her nephew, John Herschel, the astronomer, mathematician, and author of the Preliminary Discourse on Natural Philosophy. |
 | Jane Webb Loudon (1807-1858) was one of the foremost popularizer of horticulture for women in the nineteenth century. Prior to marrying the landscape architect John Claudius Loudon, she wrote the remarkable novel The Mummy! (1827). |
 | Jane Marcet's(1769-1858) Conversations on Chemistry (1806) was one of the most popular and influential books in science in the early nineteenth century. She also achieved success with two other works, Conversations on Political Economy (1816) and Conversations on Natural Philosophy (1819). The conversation "genre" was intended primarily for children, but attracted wide readership. |
 | Mary Fairfax Somerville(1780 - 1872) became interested in physics and optics early in her married life. Her scientific pursuits were strongly encouraged by her second husband (her first husband had died) and she presented "The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar Spectrum" to the Royal Society. The paper subsequently appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Society. She translated Laplace's Mechanism of the Heavens, and later published The Connexion of the Physical Sciences, On Molecular and Microscopic Science, and her autobiography, Personal Recollections, From Early Life to Old Age, all of which were remarkably popular. A recent biography of Somerville, Science, Illumination, and the Female Mind, has been written by Katherine Neeley (Cambridge University Press, 2001). |
 | Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810) wrote stories and novels for children often dealing with science and humane behavior. Her History of the Robins in one of her most important works. In the Guardian of Education (London : J. Hatchard, 1802 ), Trimmer reviewed a variety of books for children. Cautious about works that skirted Anglican doctrine, she remained a strong advocate of science. "Natural History, she wrote, "is a science, the study of which should begin in infancy, and be carried on when leisure permits, throughout life; for innumerable are the Works of God, an consequently inexhaustible is the fund of knowledge they supply to the contemplative mind!" (Guardian, p. 495-96) |
