WARD'S BOOK OF EPONYMS Who gave their names to what If you have ever wondered who gave their names to things and places, you will find the answer here. You can read about John Sandwich, George Dallas, Gustave Eiffel, James of York (New York), Clarence Birds-Eye, Charles Baltimore and many many others.

This is Ward's Book of Eponyms where you will find a large list of people who had things named after them. This page is devoted to things named after people whose name begins with the letter: M

macadamize tarmac The man who created macadam and invented the concept of modern road building was John Loudon McAdam (1756–1836). He was born in Ayr, but when his father died he left for New York where he amassed a tidy fortune. He returned home, aged 27, where he was appalled by the condition of the roads, which were composed of rubble and after a heavy rain degenerated into a morass. McAdam conducted road-making experiments at Falmouth and conceived the idea of a roadbed with layers of broken stones of roughly equal size. They would be placed over a rounded roadbed, which allowed water to drain away. The new roads were called macadamized. McAdam was appointed general surveyor for highways in 1827. Tarmac, or tarmacadam is a later improvement using a bituminous binder to keep the surface together.   John Loudon McAdam inventor of tarmac Mach 1 When airplanes first started to fly, their speed was measured in distance per hour like a ground vehicle, but as air speeds increased, that method became obsolete. Ernst Mach (1838–1916) was born in Brno in what we now call The Czech Republic. He was a professor of mathematics and physics and studied the action of bodies moving at high speeds through gases. He calculated their speed in terms of the ratio between their velocity and the speed of sound. On 14th October 1947, thirty-one years after Mach's death, Captain Charles Yeager broke the sound barrier or, as it became known ‘Mach 1’. macintosh Charles Macintosh (1766–1843) was a Scottish chemist who patented a process in 1823 that created a waterproof fabric. A process cemented layers of cloth using naphtha, a by-product of tar. He formed a company to manufacture the Mackintosh raincoat, or mac, but still carried on scientific work. In 1823 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Macintosh died in 1843 and was buried in the churchyard of Glasgow Cathedral. Mae West The American stage and film actress, Mae West (1892–1980), was known for her sex appeal and her audacious remark, “Come up and see me sometime”. The airman's pneumatic life jacket gave the wearer the appearance of an ample bosom like Mae's, so the name Mae West became the name of the life jacket.   The actress Mae West and her eponymous life jacket magenta The brilliant reddish colour was discovered in 1859 by French scientists working on coal tar dyes. It was originally called fuschine, after the fuchsia, but later in that year, the French army had a great victory over the Austrians in Italy at the Battle of Magenta. The colour was renamed after battle, although some cynics claim that it was reminiscent of the blood-spattered battlefield. magnolia This aromatic evergreen was first noticed in 1703 on the island of Martinique by a French monk, Charles Plumier, a student of botany. He named it after his professor of botany, Pierre Magnol (1638 – 1715) of the University of Montpelier. Magnol was the pre-eminent botanists of his day, introducing the concept of plant families, a great scientific advance. Before Magnol, it was thought that each species existed independently, having been individually created by God.   Botanist Pierre Magnol famous for the magnolia Manhattan The island of Manhattan was purchased from the natives for a quantity of beads, kettles, axes, and cloth. The vendors were the Manhatte tribe although it is doubtful whether they were fully aware of the consequences of the transaction. The Manhattan cocktail, a mixture of whiskey, vermouth, and bitters, was introduced at New York's Manhattan Club in 1874 at an event hosted by Winston Churchill's mother, Jennie Jerome. The mansard roof is characterized by two slopes, the lower being almost perpendicular and the upper nearly flat. The lower slope can be punctuated by dormer windows, adding additional space. The roof was named for its designer, the French architect Nicolas François Mansart (1598–1666). In seventeenth century France, householders paid property taxes according to the number of stories in the house. This design enabled the house owner to have an additional storey without extra tax. Margherita Pizza was designed to resemble the Italian flag with the colours red (tomato), white (mozzarella cheese) and green (basil). It was created by the chef Raffaele Esposito of Naples and served to the Queen of Italy, Margherita of Savoy, when she visited Naples in 1889. Margherita died in 1926 and was buried in the Pantheon in Rome, but her memory will live forever in the pizza created for her. Mars Bar The inventor of this British icon was an American, Forest Edward Mars (1904-1999), who was disowned by his father, Frank C Mars of Mars Inc, a Chicago candy manufacturer. The mars bar was mass produced in Slough and became a major part of the British identity. Eventually, Mars was reconciled with his father and returned to Chicago where he produced M & M’s (Mars and Mars), a product which was an imitation of Rowntree’s Smarties.   The mausoleum of Forest Edward Mars inventor of the mars bar

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