Maria Sibylla Merian
Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family. Merian was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly.
Marie Bethell Beauclerc
Marie Bethell Beauclerc was born in London in 1845 as Maria Bethell. When she was around four years old, she and her older twin siblings Richard and Elizabeth, were sent from London to a boarding school near Bath. By this time Maria Bethell's surname and the surname of her siblings, had been changed to Beauclerc. The children's father, Richard Bethell, died when Maria was five years old however the reason for the name change of Maria, Richard and Elizabeth from Bethell to Beauclerc is unknown. Maria Beauclerc attended Weston Boarding Schools near Bath until circumstances forced her to leave school at age nine. At age twelve she began teaching herself shorthand from a manual which she found in some waste paper. The manual entitled "The Phonographic Teacher", was written by Isaac Pitman (knighted in 1894). On her thirteenth birthday, Maria Beauclerc and her mother moved to Birmingham where she continued her studies through a member of the Phonetic Society in Bath who corrected her exercises through the post. The addition of Bethell to the name Beauclerc appeared for the first time in the title of a biography entitled " Marie Bethell Beauclerc" in "The Phonetic Journal" Sept. 1891.