Annabella Byron, had encouraged her study of mathematics, hiring a series of tutors to instruct her in algebra and trigonometry, a radical course of study in an age when women were excluded from important scientific institutions such as the Royal Society, and were assumed to be incapable of rigorous scientific thinking. But Annabella had an ulterior motive in encouraging her daughter’s math skills, hoping that the methodical and practical nature of her studies would override the dangerous influence of her dead father.
