Mary Somerville (born Fairfax) (1780-1872), Scottish scientific writer, born in Jedburgh. After she was widowed in 1807she had the opportunity to study mathematics and astronomy and her second husband, whom she married in 1812, encouraged her intellectual pursuits. Her translation of Mecanique Celeste by Pierre Laplace, published as The Mechanism of the Heavens (1831) brought her fame. Shw supported female education and emancipation, and Somerville College, Oxford University, was named for her (1879). Engraving from The Illustrated London News (London, 14 December 1872).