Margaret Lindsay Huggins

Margaret Lindsay, Lady Huggins (née Murray; 14 August 1848 – 24 March 1915) was an Irish-English scientific investigator and astronomer. With her husband William Huggins she was a pioneer in the field of spectroscopy and co-wrote the Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra.

Family and early life Huggins was born on 14 August 1848, in Dublin, to a family of four. Her parents were Helen Lindsay and John Murray, a solicitor who attended Edinburgh Academy. Her younger brother by three years, Robert Douglas, attended Edinburgh Academy at the age of twelve, and then attended further education in Trinity College Dublin in his later years. The family home was a Georgian style townhouse, at 23 Longford Terrace in Monkstown, Dublin.

Margaret's grandfather, Robert Murray, was a very important figure in her life. He was a wealthy officer at the Bank of Ireland but also enjoyed the hobby of astronomy.

Huggins' interest and abilities in spectroscopy led to her introduction by astronomical instrument maker Howard Grubb to the astronomer William Huggins, whom she married on 8 September 1875 in the parish church at Monkstown, Dublin. Evidence suggests that Margaret was instrumental in instigating William Huggins' successful program in photographic research.

Marriage Prior to their first encounter, Margaret was already a fervent admirer of her husband-to-be, Sir William Huggins. William was an astronomical spectroscopist, whose line of work collaborated instantly with Margaret's. Their partnership was described as being "one of the most successful husband and wife partnerships in the whole of astronomy".

After their marriage on 8 September 1875, at the Monkstown Parish Church, the "two star-gazed" lovers devoted themselves to their research and their inspiring companionship resulted in an array of astronomical findings. Margaret and William Huggins were the first to "observe and to identify the series of hydrogen lines in the spectrum of the star Vega."

In 1890 she, and three other women, were elected to the council of the new British Astronomical Association; she later became an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was cremated and her ashes laid next to William's at Golders Green Crematorium. Margaret addressed in her will for a memorial to be erected in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, in honor of her husband. This memorial consists of a pair of medallions which are inscribed "William Huggins, astronomer 1824–1910" and the other "Margaret Lindsay Huggins, 1848–1915, his wife and fellow worker". There was a plaque placed in 1997 that marks the house she grew up in on 23 Longford Terrace, Monkstown Dublin.

Publications Obituary, William Lassell, 1880. Astronomical Drawing, 1882. Obituary, Warren de la Rue, 1889. On a new group of lines in the photographic spectrum of Sirius, 1890. The System of the Stars, 1890. On Wolf and Rayet's Bright-Line Stars in Cygnus, 1891. The Astrolabe, 1895. The Astrolabe. II. History, 1895. Spectroscopic notes, 1897. An Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra from λ 4870 to λ 3300, 1899. Obituary, Agnes Mary Clerke, 1907.