Professor Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story Maskelyne |
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Portrait of Neville Story-Maskelyne taken by Henry Fox Talbot
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Born |
Basset Down House, Wroughton, Wiltshire |
3 September 1823
Died | 20 May 1911 Basset Down House, Wroughton, Wiltshire |
(aged 87)
Fields | Mineralogy |
Institutions | British Museum |
Alma mater | Wadham College, Oxford |
Known for | Meteorite classification |
Notable awards |
Wollaston Medal (1893) Fellow of Wadham |
Spouse | Thereza Mary Llewelyn |
Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story Maskelyne (3 September 1823 – 20 May 1911) was an English geologist and politician.
Educated at Wadham College, Oxford, Maskelyne taught mineralogy and chemistry at Oxford from 1851, before becoming a professor of mineralogy, 1856-95. He was Keeper of Minerals at the British Museum from 1857 to 1880. He was made an honorary Fellow of Wadham in 1873.
Maskelyne was also a pioneer of photography and an associate of Fox Talbot.
The meteoritic mineral maskelynite was named after him.
Nevil was the eldest son of Antony Mervin Reeve Story and Margaret Maskelyne, the daughter of the Astronomer Royal, Nevil Maskelyne. The family adopted the name of Maskelyne on Nevil's coming of age as they had inherited that family's estate at Basset Down in Wiltshire.
Nevil married Thereza Mary Llewelyn (1834 – 27 February 1926) on 29 June 1858.
Their daughter Mary married Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster on 29 July 1885, and Hugh and Mary's granddaughter Vanda Morton published Nevil's biography in 1987 (see references). Their daughter Thereza married Arthur William Rucker in 1892.
He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Cricklade as a Liberal, 1880–1886, and as Liberal Unionist, 1886–1892, and a member of Wiltshire County Council, 1889–1904.