Famous People Who Died In 1903

Herbert Spencer was the man behind the expression “survival of the fittest,” after reading Charles Darwin's iconic work On the Origin of Species. The British anthropologist, sociologist, and philosopher introduced the concept of Social Darwinism, which applied the theory of evolution to societies and social classes.

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, landscape architect, public administrator, and social critic. Dubbed the father of American landscape architecture, Frederick was responsible for co-designing several well-known urban parks including Walnut Hill Park, Prospect Park, Cadwalader Park, and Central Park. He is also remembered for his work on the landscape encircling the US Capitol building.

Camille Pissarro was a Danish-French painter best remembered for his contributions to Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. He is credited with establishing a group of 15 aspiring artists, for which he served as a pivotal figure. He was regarded as a father figure to several important painters, including Vincent Willem van Gogh.

Lieserl Einstein’s existence came into light almost 30 years after her father Albert Einstein’s death. She was the illegitimate, first-born child of Einstein and his fellow student, and later wife, Mileva Maric. Some believe she died of scarlet fever, while other sources state she was given up for adoption.

Renowned meteorologist and aeronaut James Glaisher was a pioneer of balloon flights and had penned the iconic book Travels in the Air. He had also contributed to the formation of the Meteorological Society and the Aeronautical Society of Britain. The 2019 movie The Aeronauts depicts his exploits as a balloonist.

Martha Jane Cannary, better known by her nickname Calamity Jane, was an American frontierswoman. Her friendship with Wild Bill Hickok and her habit of wearing men's attire made her a popular fictional character in literature, plays, games, films, and TV series. She has been portrayed by actresses like Jean Arthur, Frances Farmer, Marin Sais, and Yvonne De Carlo among others.

Josiah Willard Gibbs was an American scientist best remembered for making major theoretical contributions to mathematics, physics, and chemistry. As a mathematician, Gibbs is credited with inventing modern vector calculus. In 1901, he was honored with the prestigious Copley Medal for his contributions. Josiah Willard Gibbs's work had a major influence on physicists like J. D. van der Waals.

Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer best remembered for his art songs. Although he produced extraordinary musical pieces, his work was constantly affected by depression before he suffered a mental collapse in the late-1890s. Hugo Wolf is credited with producing some of the best-known lieders, a type of German song.

Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet was an Anglo-Irish physicist and mathematician. He studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and spent his entire career at the University of Cambridge as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. As a physicist, he made key contributions to fluid mechanics and physical optics. He received the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1893.

Apart from being a socialite, Emily Warren Roebling was also a skilled engineer. She took over the reins of designing the Brooklyn Bridge when her husband, the chief engineer of the project, Washington Augustus Roebling, was rendered bedridden. She went against the grain and earned a law certificate, too.

Austrian thinker Otto Weininger, whose main areas of interests included philosophy of religion, logic, gender and psychology, lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His book Geschlecht und Charakter (Sex and Character), which gained popularity following his suicide by gunshot, became a sourcebook for anti-Semitic propagandists. Some of his writings were used by Nazi propaganda.  

English novelist George Gissing is known for the way he showcased the realism of the lower-middle class in his works such as The Nether World. In spite of being a brilliant student, he was expelled from Owens College for theft. He specialized in the literary study of Charles Dickens and his works.

Emily Stowe created history by becoming the first female doctor to practice in Canada and the second to receive a physician’s license in the country. A champion of women’s education, she was also a prominent suffragist and assisted in building the first women’s medical school in Canada.

Olive Oatman was an American woman who was abducted by a group of Native American tribe when she was 14 years old. She was enslaved by the tribe and later traded to the Mohave people. After her release at the age of 19, Oatman became the subject of several novels, movies, plays, and poetry.

Best known for his short poem Invictus, William Ernest Henley was a Victorian-era British poet and author. A disease he contracted in childhood caused one of his legs to be amputated. It is believed, he was the inspiration behind the crippled character Long John Silver in RL Stevenson’s Treasure Island.

Born to a French father and a British mother, Sophie Gengembre Anderson was a self-taught artist. The family fled to the U.S. to escape the French Revolution. A master portraitist and a major Pre-Raphaelite figure, Sophie specialized in painting women and children, with cats and natural elements thrown in.

One of the most influential 19th-century classicists, Theodor Mommsen donned many hats and was at the same time a historian, a philologist, a legal scholar, and an archaeologist. His legendary A History of Rome won him a Nobel Prize in Literature. He had also fathered 16 children.

Russian ecologist, geomorphologist, and soil scientist Vasily Dokuchaev initially taught at the University of St. Petersburg and was later associated with the Novo-Aleksandr Institute of Agriculture and Forestry. He developed a soil classification system that explained the 5 factors for soil formation. The city of Dokuchaievsk in Ukraine is named after him.

Renowned Austrian architect Camillo Sitte, best known for his book City Planning According to Artistic Principles, believed in a lot of ideas that were similar to those of English architect Sir Ebenezer Howard. He had also been the director of the Vienna State Polytechnic School and launched the periodical City Building.

Hans Gude was a Norwegian romanticist painter best remembered for his landscape paintings. Counted among Norway's leading landscape painters along with Johan Christian Dahl, Gude is also considered the backbone of Norwegian National Romanticism. Over the course of his illustrious career, Hans Gude won several honors and medals.

Alexander Bain was a Scottish philosopher. He was a prominent educationalist in the British school of empiricism. A respected figure in the fields of psychology, logic, linguistics, moral philosophy, and education reform, he founded Mind, the first-ever journal of psychology and analytical philosophy. He had an illustrious academic career at the University of Aberdeen. 

Anglican cleric Frederic Farrar is best remembered for the tales of school life that he had penned in the novel Eric, or, Little by Little. As a philologist, he applied Charles Darwin’s theory to the evolution of languages. He had even been a pallbearer at Darwin’s funeral.

Ronglu was a Manchu military and political leader who lived during the late Qing dynasty. A close associate of Empress Dowager Cixi, Ronglu served in many prominent military and civil positions, such as the Grand Council, Viceroy of Zhili, Grand Secretary, Zongli Yamen, Secretary of Defence, Wuwei Corps Commander, Nine Gates Infantry Commander, and Beiyang Trade Minister.

Christian Johansson was a ballet teacher and choreographer. He is best remembered for working at the Imperial Russian Ballet where he served as a ballet master. Johansson is widely regarded as one of the most prominent teachers in the history of Russian ballet. Christian Johansson is credited with influencing a generation of ballet dancers.