Mrs. Bryan and her Children, 1797 (engraving)

Creator: Samuel Shelley (artist); William Nutter (engraver) An engraved portrait of Margaret Bryan (fl. 1795-1816), educator and writer on natural philosophy, with her daughters. They are depicted with a telescope, armillary sphere, globe, sextant and dividers. Bryan ran a boarding-school for girls at Blackheath from 1795 to 1806, opened a school in London in 1815, and moved to Margate in 1816, where she also ran a school. Unusually, she included science and mathematics as subjects suitable for girls. Her books include A Compendious System of Astronomy (1797) (from which this image is taken), Lectures on Natural Philosophy (1806), An Astronomical and Geographical Class Book for Schools (1815). She was able to obtain the approval of the mathematician Charles Hutton (1737–1823), and was a friend of the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskeleyne (1732–1811). She was the scientific advisor for a 1804 revised version of the board game ‘Science in Sport, or the Pleasures of Astronomy’ (image number F6442).