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Lady Margaret Hall Library: Early Science

This is a previous exhibition, but if you are interested in viewing one of the objects you can make an appointment (email librairan@lmh.ox.ac.uk). Exhibitions in the library rotate once or twice a year. Have a look at our current exhibitions to see what's on at the moment.

Early Science

This exhibition, launched in Michaelmas 2017, looks at items from LMH Library & Archives relating to the theme of science.

By Jamie Fishwick-Ford, Martyna Grzesiak, and Oliver Mahony

Science at LMH before WWII

Carroll's Game of logic

1 of 5 | Science at LMH in the 19th Century

A handful of our earliest students were interested in science, particularly mathematics. In our first decade Eleanor Best and Emily Morse both studied maths alongside other subjects from 1882–4, Ruth Sparrow (1884–6) was a physicist, Thomasina Prestidge (1885–7) a mathematician, and Laura Lester (1888–91) a chemist. In those early days our students attended special lectures organised by the Association for the Promotion of Higher Education for Women in Oxford (A.E.W.), or visited lectures in those Oxford colleges which permitted women to attend (by 1897 only Magdalen barred women from attending their lectures), or tutors from across Oxford visited LMH. Sometimes tutors visiting LMH were part of formal arrangements, and sometimes they were more informal affairs.

One such visitor was Charles Dodgson, the Christ Church Mathematical Lecturer and specialist in logic, who is better known today as Lewis Carroll. From Edith Langridge’s memoirs we know that Dodgson practised The game of logic at LMH. This was one of several popularist mathematics books published under Dodgson’s pen-name, to try to get fans of Alice’s adventures interested in the mathematic ideas underlying it. Dodgson clearly kept up a relationship with LMH, as he gave us copies of his books on logic in 1896.

Lewis Carroll, The game of logic (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886). Briggs Room 164 2

Elinor Ewbank, LMH Chemistry Student

LMH in 1901, featuring Elinor Ewbank

1 of 5 | Student at LMH

Elinor Katherine Ewbank (1880–1958) was a student at LMH from 1899–1903: she is depicted here in the 1901 group photo, 4th from left on the back row. She was a much-liked student, quiet and steady, with a deep sense of selflessness. She was also very talented, with a natural flair for Chemistry that she shared with her relative Dr. Wollaston, and she got a first class in Natural Sciences (Chemistry).

LMH group photograph, 1901. LMH Archives, Album 2

Cosmology from Aristotle to Galileo

Bailly's Histoire de l'astronomy ancienne

1 of 3 | Ancient Astronomy

The Aristotelean geocentric model of the universe, as developed by Claudius Ptolemy (90–168), was preeminent for over a thousand years. In this model, the Earth sat at the middle of the universe, heavy and stationary, made of the four terrestrial elements. It was surrounded by the planetary spheres, containing the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and finally the fixed stars, all made of one special light and shining element: aether. It included a complex system of orbits, epicycles and deferents, which precisely matched observed planetary movements and enabled accurate predictions of their future and past positions.

This geocentric model was supported by Biblical references like 1 Chronicles 16:30 and Psalm 104:5 (which say that the Earth is stationary) and Ecclesiastes 1:5 and Joshua 10:13 (which mention the movement of the sun). Thus the Ptolemaic model, matching observed planetary movements and supported by Scripture, was unassailable in Christian Europe for over a thousand years.

The geocentric model was challenged by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). He proposed a heliocentric model, in which the Sun was the centre of a Solar System, orbited by the Earth, all the planets, and the stars, with the Moon orbiting the Earth (which also rotated on its axis, and the axis moved).

This book and the next were both part of the Edward Hugh Norris Wilde bequest. His wife, Agnes Clay, was a Classics student here from 1886–1900, and a tutor from 1901–10.

Jean Bailly, Histoire de l’astronomie ancienne (Paris: De Bure, 1781). Briggs Room 520.9 1

Newton and his Followers

Newton's Principia

1 of 3 | Newton's Great Work

Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (or the Mathematical principles of natural philosophy) was first published in Latin in 1687; an English translation would follow in 1728. In the Principia Newton lay down the three laws of motion (leges motus in the original Latin) which are the basis of classical mechanics, as well as proposing solutions to a number of mathematical problems, such as that of planetary motion. Newton’s ideas were presented and justified entirely in terms of geometry, a branch of mathematics which would soon be eclipsed by calculus, the use of which Newton developed in the Principia. The work builds on his previous De motu corporum in gyrum (Of the motion of bodies in an orbit), which had been composed under the warm encouragement of astronomer Edmond Halley.

Isaac Newton, Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (Cologny: C. & A. Philibert, 1760). Briggs Room 504.1 25–27

Botantical Collections

Parkinson's Park in the Sun

1 of 3 | The Park in the Sun

John Parkinson (1567–1650), was one of the great English writers who straddled the divide between the last herbalists and the first botanists; apothecary to James I and Royal Botanist to Charles I. Parkinson’s first great work was Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629), a guide to the laying out and cultivation of flower gardens, kitchen gardens, and orchard gardens. It is famous for its large and beautiful full-page plates, showing the plants he discusses — as well as for the terrible pun in its name (Parkinson’s Park-in-Sun Terrestrial Paradise). Our copy is of the beautiful 1904 reproduction made by Methuen, which wonderfully captures the feel of the original.

John Parkinson, Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris (London: Methuen & co., 1904). Briggs Room 580 5F

The Industrial Revolution and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution

Malthus's Essay on population

1 of 3 | Competition over scarce resources

“The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man," Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) wrote in the opening chapter of his Essay on the principle of population. This English economist and cleric considered the potential outcomes of an overgrown human population, prompted by the effects of the industrial revolution. The implications of a scarcity of resources for a growing population, and ideas of competition propounded by Malthus directly influenced Charles Darwin, who had a copy of Malthus’ Essay with him on board HMS Beagle during his 1831–6 voyage to the Galapagos Islands.

This copy of Malthus’ work was presented to the library by Eleanor Lodge, LMH alumna and later Vice-Principal.

Thomas Malthus, An essay on the principle of population (London: Thomas Bensley for Joseph Johnson, 1806). Briggs Room 330.1 5 & 6

Contact the Library

LMH Special Collections are open to visitors by appointment (email librarian@lmh.ox.ac.uk) during staffed hours, Monday to Friday, 9.30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

Lady Margaret Hall Library
Norham Gardens
OXFORD
OX2 6QA
United Kingdom


Email: librarian@lmh.ox.ac.uk

Telephone: (01865) 274361

Jamie Fishwick-Ford

(Librarian, they/she)

Sally Hamer

(Assistant Librarian)