Fish & Schists*

The Incredible Life of Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)

Are you familiar with the name ?

Unless you are an historian, a palaeontologist or a geologist, or you live in Lyme Regis, on the south coast of England, why should you? Because despite her incredible contributions, Mary Anning’s name was largely forgotten, a mere footnote in the grand story of palaeontology.

But what did she do ? What did she do?

She Sold Sea Shells by the Sea Shore!

Mary was the daughter of Richard Anning, a cabinetmaker/carpenter, and Mary (or Molly) Moore. Her parents married in August 1793 and settled in the seaside town of Lyme Regis (Dorset) in a working-class neighbourhood. They had 9 (or maybe 10) children, but only Mary and Joseph survived.

She was named after one of her deceased sisters (who does that, seriously? Can’t we just say she was named after her mother?). At 15 months old, she was struck by lightning. A neighbour was looking after her, standing under an elm tree with two other women. Lightning struck the tree and all three women were killed, only Mary miraculously survived.

She had always been a sickly baby, but after the strike she became robust and healthy. Many people believed that Mary’s intelligence, determination and lively personality were triggered by this accident.

Mary’s father’s work was not enough to feed the family, and to make ends meet, he collected fossils from the beach and the limestone cliffs around Lyme Regis, to sell to tourists, and he introduced his children, Mary and Joseph, to this activity.

By the time she was five or six, Mary was her father’s fossil-collecting sidekick – an unfathomable activity for a girl in the 19th century!

Fossil Hunting: ‘Amm-on-it!’(e)

200 million years ago, Lyme Regis, along with most of Britain, lay beneath the sea. The climate at the time was warm and subtropical, much like the Caribbean today, and there was abundant wildlife in the sea, such as ammonites, fish and sharks, and millions of microscopic plankton.

When these marine animals died, their bodies sank to the sea floor and became buried in layer after layer of sand and mud. The hard part of these organisms became fossilized. This is why the cliffs we see today are very rich in fossilised remains of prehistoric sea creatures. All this region of Britain is known as ‘The Jurassic Coast’ for a reason…

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Richard Anning had time to teach his daughter how to look for, and clean the fossils they found on the beach, before he died in 1810, aged 43. Mary was only 11 years old.

It seems Mary stopped going to school that year. Although she had little formal education, she could read, and she taught herself geology and anatomy. Mrs. Stocks, a Lyme Regis landowner, helped the family financially, and gave Mary Anning her first geology book.

So she, along with her mother and her brother Joseph, began full-time fossil hunting, following in her father’s footsteps with an impressive resilience, and went on to explore the treacherous cliffs for hidden treasures.

Her daily life was one of windswept beaches and crumbling cliffs. Little did she know that her finds would rewrite the history books. Well palaeontology books actually.

The Sea Dragons and the Monsters of Selfishness

1) 1811: The Ichtyosaur

In 1811, Mary’s older brother, Joseph, found the skull of a “crocodile” in the cliffs near their home, prompting Mary (age 12) to investigate further. A few months later, she had located the nearly complete fossilised skeleton and freed it from the cliff.

It turned out to be a 5 meter skeleton of a marine reptile from the time of the dinosaurs. Mary sold the skeleton to a local collector for £23 (around £2000 in today’s money). It might not seem that much but this amount of money at that time would have been the equivalent to 6 months’ salary for a carpenter like her father, and it significantly helped pull the family out of debt.

The skull and skeleton eventually made their way to London, where the creature was studied and named Ichthyosaurus (‘fish lizard’).

Its description and image were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, in 1814. Noticeably absent from this paper is any credit to Mary Anning or her brother.

2) 1823: The Plesiosaur

In December 1823, Mary’s next major discovery came to light; it was a nearly complete Plesiosaurus. With its long neck, small head, and flippers, this discovery challenged existing notions of what marine life looked like in prehistoric times, and lent further credit to the concept of extinction.

The Plesiosaurus was described this time in the Transactions of the Geological Society of London; once again, Mary Anning was not credited in the paper.

3) 1828: The Pterosaur

The year 1828 saw Mary Anning’s discovery of the skeleton of a Pterosaur, the first known example of these flying reptiles outside Germany.

With this new find, she showed that these creatures once soared above much of the ancient world, broadening once again the horizon of the palaeontology science.

I am sure you are starting to see a pattern here: do you think her name was mentioned in the paper describing the beast?

4) Mary Anning’s Lifetime: Mansplaining Fossils

Mary Anning was always very meticulous in her work when extracting and preparing the fossils. This allowed for very detailed studies back in London, contributing significantly to the body of knowledge in palaeontology.

The body of knowledge in question being definitely a male one at that time, her good work was (nearly) always ended up attributed to one of her male colleagues.

Being a woman in a men’s world doesn’t exactly open doors, and of course women were not allowed to join the newly created (1807) but very prestigious Geological Society of London or attend meetings. We have to wait until 1919 (112 years after its creation) for the first female Fellows to be elected.

Seriously, think about it: the 19th century’s big names of Paleontology, like William Buckland or Gideon Mantell, made their careers over a tooth here, bits of a jawbone there, but it was Mary Anning, a self-taught (female, poor, officially uneducated) fossil hunter, who unearthed the real treasures: the three fossilised skeletons that I already mentioned, and so many more over the years:

She unearthed several more specimens of complete Plesiosaurs and Ichthyosaurs, identified coprolites (Fossilised poop), discovered the fossil of a fish linking the sharks and rays species, and specimens of an invertebrate closely related to the squid and octopus, with intact fossil ink sacs, containing viable ink that could be used for drawing.

Although Mary Anning was quite certain of her identification, her friend William Buckland wasn’t. Eventually guess who described it and published it in the scientific papers?

Anterior sheath and ink bag of ‘Belemnosepia’ – imagined reconstruction of the creature by William Buckland, “Geology and mineralogy considered with reference to natural theology” (1836).  GSL Library collections.

In fact, I could only find one item referring to Mary Anning in the published litterature, a letter she wrote to ‘The Magazine of Natural History’, published in 1839, that you can find on the website of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Mary’s Legacy

So Mary was never famous, nor wealthy. She never got the recognition she deserved, but in all fairness her talents and skills, her intelligence and expertise were respected by these men.

In 1826, Mary opened a shop in Lyme Regis. She sold most of her fossils to support herself.

Her discoveries inspired famous geologist (and childhood friend) Henry De la Beche to paint ‘Duria Antiquior – A More Ancient Dorset’ in 1830. He sold prints to raise money for Mary.

At Lyme Regis, several geologists and fossil collectors from Europe and North America visited her. Some even bought fossils her for the New York Lyceum of Natural History, which had just opened.

And in 1838, she was granted an annual income of £25 (a little short of £3500 in today’s money) to continue her work, from the British Association for the Advancement of Science and London’s Geological Society. This was a bit of a recognition despite the fact that, as a woman, she couldn’t become a member.

In 1844, King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony visited her shop and bought an ichthyosaur skeleton for his natural history collection.

In 1846, she was found to be suffering from breast cancer, and the Geological Society of London arranged further funds for her welfare.

Mary died the next year, in 1847, at the age of 47.

She had never married and her only surviving family were her brother Joseph and his wife Amelia.

‘’The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone‘’

Mary Anning

Mary was buried at Lyme Regis Parish Church, St Michael’s. Her obituary was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, and in 1850 a set of stained glass windows were unveiled at St Michael’s, as a lasting memorial dedicated to Mary Anning.

It was paid for by contributions from her friends who were Fellows of the Geological Society, and can still be seen to this day. A remarkable tribute. Only a bit late maybe…

Statue of Mary Anning in Lyme Regis, unveiled in 2022

Now if you want to hear more about life in prehistoric time, see the real bones that Mary found on the shores of the Jurassic coast, and many more, come join me for a tour of the Natural History Museum in London!

You can book here (with Tours by Locals), or here (with GetYourGuide), or have a look here to contact me directly to organise a private tour (and get a 25% discount rate for your group mentioning the code ‘MaryAnning2024)

Helene