Biography of Mary Somerville:

1780 - Born on the 26th of December. 1741 - Mary Somerville was the daughter of Admiral Sir William George Fairfax, and was born at the manse of Jedburgh, in the Borders, the house of her mother's sister, wife of Dr Thomas Somerville, author of My Own Life and Times, whose son would become Mary's second husband.

1804 - Mary Somerville married her distant cousin, the Russian Consul in London, Captain Samuel Greig. 1812 - Mary Somerville married another cousin, Dr William Somerville, inspector of the Army Medical Board, who encouraged and greatly aided her in the study of the physical sciences.

1831 - Mary Somerville greatly popularized its form, and its publication, under the title of The Mechanism of the Heavens, at once made her famous. 1834 - Her other works are the Connection of the Physical Sciences.