Copyright

Joan Richards

Published On

2024-09-04

Page Range

pp. 220–246

Language

  • English

Print Length

27 pages

9. De Morgan’s Family

Sophia and the Children

  • Joan L. Richards (author)
Chapter of: Augustus De Morgan, Polymath: New Perspectives on his Life and Legacy(pp. 220–246)
This chapter places Augustus De Morgan in his familial context. Focusing on his wife Sophia, it explores her fascination with the development of her offspring’s powers of reasoning, underlining that interest in education was the preserve of both husband and wife, not of Augustus De Morgan alone. The chapter also balances De Morgan’s intellectual legacy with his biological legacy through his children’s achievements: we learn of their second son George, a budding mathematician and co-founder of the London Mathematical Society, who fell victim to an early death; their youngest daughter Mary, who became a published author of fairy tales and short stories; and their eldest son William, who, although best known in his lifetime as a successful novelist, is remembered today for his innovative work as a ceramic artist, particularly his creation of ‘De Morgan tiles’, via which the name of De Morgan continues to live on.

Contributors

Joan L. Richards

(author)
Emerita Professor of History and Director of the Program of Science, Society, and Technology at Brown University

Joan L. Richards is Emerita Professor of History and Director of the Program of Science, Society, and Technology at Brown University, where she worked for over thirty-five years. Her work is infused with an abiding interest in the ways in which mathematics has served as a model of thinking that has developed in interaction with other approaches to the human mind, be they psychological, spiritual, physical, or even phrenological. Her book on the extended De Morgan family, Generations of Reason: A Family’s Search for Meaning in Post-Newtonian England, was published by the Yale University Press in 2021.