Abstract
In 1835 Mary Somerville received the most solid recognition of her career. It came not from her friends the Whigs but from a Tory ministry. Sir Robert Peel’s reasons for placing her on the Civil List in April 1835 reflect not only her public position at the time but changes that were taking place in the award of pensions and in politicians’ perceptions of the place of science and scientists in the national life. Further, a close examination of this particular event not only discloses some of the political implications which were read into it at the time and some of its after-effects but the hairbreadth margin by which her award was officially validated. Of interest also is a comparison of factors affecting her pension and its size with those governing some others given for scientific and literary work.
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© 1983 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague
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Patterson, E.C. (1983). The Civil List and Mary Somerville. In: Mary Somerville and the Cultivation of Science, 1815–1840. Archives Internationales D’Histoire Des Idees/International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 102. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6839-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6839-4_8
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