Person: Bryant, Sophie Willock
Sophie Willock Bryant was an Irish mathematician who also published on many other topics: Irish history, religion, education, women's rights, and philosophy.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Hicks Bryant was a surgeon who, at 29, was ten years older than his wife.
- Sadly the marriage lasted less than one year for Hicks Bryant died of cirrhosis in 1870.
- Sophie Bryant then took a teaching post at a school for ladies in Highgate but she also continued her own studies.
- Sophie Bryant first met her in 1867 when she sat the Cambridge Local Examination.
- Of course Bryant had no degree, for women could not take degrees at universities at this time.
- Still encouraged by Buss, Bryant decided to read for a B.Sc. degree but there were severe difficulties to overcome.
- While studying for her D.Sc., Bryant was elected to the London Mathematical Society in 1882.
- Bryant, however, does have the distinction of being the first woman to have a paper published in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society.
- Bryant's conclusion that elongated rhombic semi-dodecahedra are the natural form of honeycomb cells had been observed by Kepler.
- In 1895 Frances Buss died and Bryant succeeded her as head of the North London Collegiate School.
- Bryant published on many topics, Irish history, religion, education, women's rights, and philosophy.
- A staunch supporter of Irish Home Rule, Sophie work books on Irish history - Celtic Ireland (1889), The Genius of the Gael: A study in Celtic psychology and its manifestations (1913) and Liberty, order and law under native Irish rule: a study in the Book of the Ancient Laws of Ireland (1923).
- Later in 1904, when Trinity College Dublin opened its degrees to women, Bryant was one of the first to be awarded an honorary doctorate.
Born 15 February 1850, Sandymount, near Dublin, Ireland. Died 14 August 1922, Chamonix, France.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Ireland, Women
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
