Naturalist / Astronomer / Microscopist / Author / Artist
Mary Ward by Adrienne Geoghegan
Mary Ward (nee King) was born in 1827 to Henry King and Harriett Lloyd, in Ferbane, Co. Offaly. Growing up, as she did, in a well-to-do scientific family, Ward developed a great interest in nature. From a very young age, she started collecting insects and using her father’s magnifying glass to study and draw them in great detail.
Ward also had a keen interest in astronomy, and while she was growing up, her cousin, William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, built the world’s largest reflective telescope at Birr Castle (which remained the largest in the world for decades). Ward produced many sketches of the different stages of the construction, and these sketches were later used to help in the reconstruction of the telescope. When she was a teenager, she was gifted her first microscope, probably one of the finest microscopes in Ireland at the time, and this became her life’s interest. She set about teaching herself all she could about microscopy.
Most universities at this time did not accept women so Ward often wrote to various scientists, asking them for information on their published works in order to further her education. She was one of just three women on the mailing list for the Royal Astronomical Society at the time. Her first book Sketches with the Microscope was published in 1858 and has since been ranked as the ‘finest book printed in the county [Offaly] in the nineteenth century.’
Ward married Henry Ward in 1854 and together they had eight children. She was left with almost all of the domestic duties, so she often stayed up late at night to write up the results of her research. Over the course of her life she published further books and contributed her scientific illustrations to numerous articles and books.
The type of steam car Mary would have been travelling on
Ward met a tragic death at the age of just 42 in 1869 when she fell from a steam-driven car and was crushed beneath it’s wheel. She was the first person in Ireland (and possibly the world) to be killed in a car accident. While many people know her for this alone, it is important that we remember her for her ground-breaking work in the field of science at a time when women were not expected to possess any kind of scientific ability and received very little education.
Sources:
‘Mary Ward,’ online at irishscientists.tripod.com, http://irishscientists.tripod.com/scientists/MARYWARD.HTM [accessed 24 Jan. 2020].
‘Irish scientist Mary Ward – the first person in the world to be killed by a car in 1869,’ The Irish Post, online at https://www.irishpost.com/news/mary-ward-irish-scientist-became-worlds-first-car-death-day-1869-99542 [accessed 23 Jan. 2020].
‘Microscopy,’ Birr Castle, online at https://birrcastle.com/microscopy/ [accessed 24 Jan. 2020].
McGreevy, Ronan, ‘Pioneering scientist and first road traffic fatality Mary Ward remembered,’ online at https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/pioneering-scientist-and-first-road-traffic-fatality-mary-ward-remembered-1.4004370 [accessed 23 Jan. 2020].
‘Celebrating the life and tragic death of Mary Ward,’ Offaly Independent, online at https://www.offalyindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2019/08/26/4178694-celebrating-the-life-and-tragic-death-of-mary-ward/ [accessed 24 Jan. 2020].
Macrory, Henry, ‘Mary Ward: Feminist famous as the first person to be killed in a car accident,’ Express, online at https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1172582/mary-ward-feminist-killed-in-car-crash-anniversary-death [accessed 24 Jan. 2020].