Mary Everest Boole (1815-1864) was a mathematician and philosopher. She was the first woman professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford. She was born in Cork, Ireland, and grew up in Bristol. She attended the Ladies' College, University College London, and entered Oxford as a student on a mathematical scholarship and gained her first degree with distinction
In 1841 she became the first woman to be awarded a degree of Doctor of Mathematics by Oxford University. She later earned a second degree from Cambridge University. Boole married Edward Sabine, who was also an academic mathematician.
They had two sons before he died in 1857. Boole herself died in 1864 after suffering from tuberculosis for many years. She is buried in St John's churchyard in Bristol where she is honoured with a memorial stone made by William Morris.
Mathematics had never had more than a secondary interest for him [her husband, George Boole]; and even logic he cared for chiefly as a means of clearing the ground of doctrines imagined to be proved, by showing that the evidence on which they were supposed to give rest had no tendency to prove them.Mary Everest Boole
Only dead mathematics can be taught where competition prevails: living mathematics must always be a communal possession.Mary Everest Boole
