Mary Somerville was a self-taught mathematician who became a celebrated scientific author and a supporter of women's rights and education. Following her death, her daughters, Martha and Mary Somerville, presented her scientific books to Girton College in May 1873. These arrived from Naples, Mary Somerville’s residence in later life, together with an ebonised bookcase. In the same year Mary’s close friend, Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904) donated the bust of Mary that is now housed in a niche in the bookcase. There is very little contemporary documentation about these two gifts but there is a suggestion that the bust is a cast. It is possible that the original bust was housed in the bookcase until the bookcase’s presentation to the College, at which point the cast replaced the original bust, or that the niche in the bookcase was used for an entirely different purpose during Mary Somerville’s lifetime.