Margaret Lindsay Huggins

Margaret Lindsay Huggins

Margaret Lindsay, Lady Huggins (born 14 August 1848, Dublin – died 24 March 1915, London),^[1] born Margaret Lindsay Murray, was an Irish-English scientific investigator and astronomer.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} With her husband William Huggins she was a pioneer in the field of spectroscopy and co-authored the Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra (1899).^[9][10]

When Huggins was young, her mother died and her father remarried, leaving her on her own much of the time. Obituaries written by her friends attribute her interest in astronomy to her grandfather, a wealthy bank officer named Robert Murray. According to these sources, Margaret's grandfather taught her the constellations, and as a result of this she began studying the heavens with home-made instruments. She constructed a spectroscope after finding inspiration in articles on astronomy in the periodical Good Words.^[11]

Huggins' interest and abilities in spectroscopy led to her introduction to the astronomer William Huggins, whom she married in 1875.^[10] Evidence suggests that Huggins was instrumental in instigating William Huggins' successful program in photographic research.^[11] She was a contributor to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.

The London Times, in the notice of the death of Huggins, mentioned that Richard Proctor referred to her as the “Herschel of the Spectroscope”. In her will she bequeathed to Wellesley College and to Wellesley College Whitin Observatory some of her astronomy collection including cherished astronomical artifacts.^[12]

Publications

• Obituary, William Lassell, 1880.^[13]
• Astronomical Drawing, 1882.^[14]
• Obituary, Warren de la Rue, 1889.^[15]
• On a new group of lines in the photographic spectrum of Sirius, 1890.^[16]
• The System of the Stars, 1890.^[17]
• On Wolf and Rayet's Bright-Line Stars in Cygnus, 1891.^[18]
• The Astrolabe, 1895.^[19]
• The Astrolabe. II. History, 1895.^[20]
• Spectroscopic notes, 1897.^[21]
• An Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra from 4870 to 3300, 1899.^[9]
• Obituary, Agnes Mary Clerke, 1907.^[22]

References

1. Brück, Mary T. (2009). "Huggins, Margaret Lindsay Murray". In Hockey, Thomas; Trimble, Virginia; Williams, Thomas R. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. New York: Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
2. Becker, Barbara J. (2011). Unravelling Starlight: William and Margaret Huggins and the Rise of the New Astronomy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-00229-6.
3. "Dame Margaret Lindsay Huggins". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Royal Astronomical Society) 76 (4): 278–282. 1916. Bibcode:1916MNRAS..76R.278. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
4. "Lady Huggins". The Observatory 38 (488): 254–256. 1915. Bibcode:1915Obs....38..254. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
5. Cannon, Annie Jump (1915). "Lady Huggins". The Observatory 38 (490): 323–324. Bibcode:1915Obs....38..323C. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
6. Whiting, Sarah Frances (1915). "Lady Huggins". The Astrophysical Journal 42 (1): 1–3. Bibcode:1915ApJ....42....1W. doi:10.1086/142188. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
7. Chant, Clarence Augustus (1915). "Death of Lady Huggins". Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada 9 (4): 149–150. Bibcode:1915JRASC...9..149C. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
8. Becker, Barbara J. (2004). "Huggins (née Murray), Margaret Lindsay, Lady Huggins". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46443. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
9. Huggins, W.; Huggins, M. L. (1899). An Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra from 4870 to 3300. Wesley.
10. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey (1986). Women in Science: Antiquity through the Nineteenth Century, A Biographical Dictionary with Annotated Bibliography. Cambridge: The MIT Press. pp. 101–102.
11. Becker, Barbara (1993). "Eclecticism, Opportunism, and the Evolution of a New Research Agenda: William and Margaret Huggins and the Origins of Astrophysics". PhD Thesis. The Johns Hopkins University. p. Chapter 4, Part 1. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
12. Whiting, Sarah F. (11 June 1915). Lady Huggins. Science. 41(1067): 853–855.
13. Huggins, Margaret Lindsay (1880). "The late Mr. William Lassell, LL.D., F.R.S.". The Observatory 3 (43): 587–590. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
14. Huggins, Margaret Lindsay (1882). "Astronomical Drawing". The Observatory 5 (68): 358–362. Bibcode:1882Obs.....5..358H. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
15. Huggins, Margaret Lindsay (1889). "Warren De La Rue (obituary)". The Observatory 12 (150): 244–250. Bibcode:1889Obs....12..245H. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
16. Huggins, William, & Huggins, Margaret Lindsay. (1890). On a new group of lines in the photographic spectrum of Sirius. Sidereal Messenger. (9): 318–319.
17. Huggins, Margaret Lindsay (1882). "The System of the Stars". The Observatory 13 (169): 382–386. Bibcode:1890Obs....13..382. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
18. Huggins, W., & Huggins, M. L. (1891). On Wolf and Rayet's Bright-Line Stars in Cygnus. Sidereal Messenger. (10): 49–65.
19. Huggins, Margaret L. "The Astrolabe." Popular Astronomy. (2): 199–202.
20. Huggins, Margaret L. "The astrolabe. II. History." Popular Astronomy. (2): 261–266.
21. Huggins, W., & Huggins, M. L. (1897). Spectroscopic notes. The Astrophysical Journal. (6): 322–327.
22. Huggins, Margaret L. (1907). "Agnes Mary Clerke". Astrophysical Journal 25 (3): 226–230. Bibcode:1907ApJ....25..226H. doi:10.1086/141436. Retrieved 8 November 2015.

External links

• Works written by or about Margaret Lindsay Huggins at Wikisource
• Obituary - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1916, volume 76, pp. 278–82.
• Bibliography from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific