born on May 21, 1799 in Lyme Regis, County of Dorset, Great Britain
died on March 9, 1847 in Lyme Regis
British fossil collector, paleontologist
225th birthday on May 21, 2024
Biography • Quotes • Literature & Sources
Biography
Not only was Mary Anning one of the founders of paleontology, she herself was a master of the science. The name of this great paleontologist is also closely associated with the restrictions women faced in a feudal, deeply patriarchal society where female strength, opinions, and self-determination mattered as little as their rights to education, property or participation in political decision-making processes.
Mary Anning is famous and celebrated today for her discovery, excavation and description of the fossils of enormous ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs and of marine invertebrates from the Lyme Regis coast in southwestern England. Her specimens — some unsurpassed to this day in terms of completeness and preparation — were instrumental in changing scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. She was one of the first to put forward the idea that the Earth had developed, laying the groundwork for the theory of evolution. In 1859, just twelve years after her death, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Mary Anning's discoveries were entirely consistent with Darwin's findings.
In 2010, the Royal Society included Mary Anning in its list of the ten most influential women scientists in British history. Her home town of Lyme Regis, sometimes dubbed the “Pearl of Dorset,” is located on a 95-mile-long stretch of coast along the English Channel that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001 and is known as the Jurassic Coast. This too is unimaginable without her contributions.
Nothing pointed to such a pre-eminent biography when Mary was born in 1799. Her parents, Richard (1766-1810) and Mary (1764-1842), had ten children, eight of whom died. Only Mary and her older brother Joseph lived to adulthood. Infant mortality was so high in Britain in the 19th century that only around half the children born reached the age of five. Under George III the country was at war with Napoleon's army; food was barely affordable for the poor, and members of the middle and upper classes no longer spent their vacations on the continent, but in England.
Mary's father worked as a cabinetmaker and carpenter, but was forced to supplement his income by collecting fossils, which he sold to tourists as “curios.” The true origin of these strange, rock-like remains was still completely unknown at the time. The idea that living beings could become extinct was almost inconceivable and was a controversial theory even among scientists. In the middle of the 19th century, and in accordance with what is written in the Bible, most people believed that God had created the Earth within a week, along with all plants, animals and humans. The beauty, diversity and perfect adaptation to their habitats that all creatures displayed were seen as evidence of the power of the Creator. It was believed that no species had disappeared or had been added ever since this creation. In addition, Bishop Ussher's calculations after careful study of the Bible had revealed that this creation of heaven and earth by God had taken place on the eve of October 23, 4004 BC.
Fossil collecting had become fashionable in the late 18th and early 19th century, but despite the father’s occasional sales to tourists, the family remained desperately poor. There was never enough money and the cold, stormy winters on the Atlantic coast were an endless struggle for food, clothing and heating material. The family’s house was so close to the sea that storm tides flooded the house, many times forcing the Annings to flee upstairs to avoid drowning.
Mary started to accompany her father on fossil hunts as a child and learned from him how to find fossils on the beach and how to clean them. She learned the popular names for the finds, whose unknown origins were the subject of imaginative legends:
—Ammonites (a group of marine invertebrates, 400 - 66 million years old and resembling the modern octopus, but with a hard-coiled shell), the most common fossils, were called “snake-stones” and “snail-stones”;
—Belemnites (fossil cephalopods, 358 - 66 million years old) were called “lady's fingers,” “devil's fingers” or “thunderstones”;
—Gryphaeas (an extinct mollusk similar to the modern oyster, whose fossil shells are mainly found in the Jurassic layers from 208 -135 million years ago) were called “devil's toenails.”
The coastal cliffs around Lyme Regis remain one of the richest fossil sites in Britain today; the geological formation known as the Blue Lias formation consists of alternating layers of limestone and shale. At the beginning of the Jurassic period (210-195 million years ago), this layer was deposited as sediment on what was then the seabed and included several species of marine life.
However, collecting fossils along this coastline was dangerous as the rain could cause landslides after floods or storms. This turned into a tragedy for the Anning family when the father suffered a serious fall from a cliff and died from his injuries in 1810 at the age of 44. From then on, eleven-year-old Mary and her brother Joseph had to help the family make ends meet.
Mary had neither time nor money for schooling, and would probably have been left with only the rudimentary reading and writing skills she had learned at Sunday school had it not been for the efforts of a local woman. Elizabeth Philpot, herself famous for an extensive collection of marine fossils (now housed in the Oxford University Museum), had settled in Lyme Regis with her two unmarried sisters and recognized Mary's extraordinary talent. Although Elisabeth Philpot was twenty years older and came from a wealthy, middle-class background, she befriended Mary and encouraged her to study scientific papers. The two remained close friends and colleagues for the rest of their lives. They would hunt for fossils on the beach together, and were usually accompanied by Tray, Mary Anning's little dog, who would then dutifully guard over any specimens they found while they continued their search.
In 1811, at the age of twelve, Mary made her first sensational discovery when she unearthed the skeleton of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile up to 3 meters tall that lived around 2 million years ago. Mary Anning received 23 pounds from her buyer, who then passed the skeleton on to William Buckland (1784-1856). Buckland was already a well-known fossil collector and became the first Professor of Geology at Oxford University. The skeleton aroused great interest, as it raised questions about the evolution of living creatures and thus the history of the Earth. It was initially assumed that it could have been a relative of the crocodile. In 1820, it was auctioned off to the British Museum in London for twice the price Mary Anning had received for her sale. Mary's discovery was the first find of a complete ichthyosaur skeleton and was published in the scientific journal Transactions of the Royal Society.
Mary was soon regarded as a knowledgeable fossil collector, and geologists and biologists bought her finds. One of her best customers was Thomas Birch, a wealthy collector who was shocked by the Anning family's poverty. In 1820, he sold the fossils he had bought from Mary Anning for the benefit of the family, thus providing them with a small financial boost.
In 1820, Mary Anning made a second major discovery: she found the first skeleton of a plesiosaurus, also a marine reptile. It was the first representative of this genus ever found, and was scientifically described by the British geologist William Conybeare. Again, Mary Anning's achievement was both her extraordinary ability to “see” fossils in the steep rocks and the care and patience with which she excavated them. She devoted over ten years to the recovery of the 7-metre-long skeleton, working entirely on her own and with only the simplest of tools. She had never received any scientific training and yet was able to depict her finds precisely in illustrations and to describe them competently. The quality of the plesiosaur fossil remains unsurpassed to this day.
A visitor, Lady Harriet Silvester, described Mary Anning in her diary in 1824:
“The extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. [...] by reading and application she has arrived to that degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the science than anyone else in this kingdom.”
In order to better understand the anatomy, physiology and possibly the diet of earlier animals, she also dissected modern fish and squid species. In a letter to Buckland (the letter was auctioned for €120,000 in 2020), she wrote of her scientifically important and correct assumption that the so-called bezoar stones were the fossilized feces of marine vertebrates. Buckland later named these objects “coprolites.” She also discovered that many belemnite fossils had a chamber in which dried ink was stored. Her friend Elizabeth Philpot managed to liquefy the ink and used it to illustrate her marine fossils.
Although more and more renowned scientists came to Mary Anning to learn from her, buy from her or to seek her advice, they failed to give her proper public recognition. The museums and scientific societies did not mention the name of the sellers or donors. Even in connection with the groundbreaking discovery of Ichthyosaurus, she was hardly ever mentioned. The influential Geological Society of London refused to accept her either as a member or as a guest. She was a woman - and women were not admitted until 1904. In 1839, she wrote to the Magazine of Natural History and corrected the claim made there that a recently found shark fossil was a new species, as she had discovered the existence of this particular shark species many years before. The excerpt from the letter that the magazine published remained the only scientific writing by Mary Anning to be published in the scientific literature. This may also be part of the reason why she was forgotten for a long time.
In 1828, it was Mary Anning for the third time – and not one of her learned visitors – who caused a sensation when she discovered the first pterosaur outside Germany. Buckland described the largest flying dinosaur scientifically.
Sales and savings had enabled her two years previously, at the age of 27, to buy a house for herself and her mother in a higher part of the city, which could no longer be flooded. The house also had glass windows that she used as shop windows. Charlotte Murchinson, wife of the then leading geologist Roderick Murchinson, helped her to set up “Anning's Fossil Depot” and became a close friend. Charlotte Murchinson was a well-traveled woman who had met prominent scientists; she built up a network of customers for Mary Anning across Europe and as far away as in the United States. Impressed by the expertise of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, the Swiss paleontologist Louis Agassiz, for example, wrote after his visit to Lyme Regis:
“Miss Philpot and Mary Anning were able to show me with absolute certainty which dorsal fin spines belonged to which shark of the 34 species.”
She soon became known in specialist circles for her excellent, comprehensive knowledge.
Around the 1830s, the economic situation in the country deteriorated dramatically, the demand for fossils declined and Mary Anning had not made any significant finds for some time, so that she once again experienced financial difficulties. She was then helped by her friend, the geologist Henry de la Beche (1796 - 1855) who had his watercolor ‘Duria Antiquior – A More Ancient Dorset’ printed as a lithograph, sold to wealthy friends and colleagues and gave the proceeds to Mary. The painting he became famous for was the first attempt to portray extinct creatures in their environment and includes each of the three species found by Anning: the ichthyosaur, the plesiosaur, recognizable by its long neck, and the pterosaur. This art form is now known as paleoart and helps in understanding prehistoric life on Earth.
The financial security, however, lasted only a few years. In 1835, Mary Anning faced another serious setback when she lost all her savings through a bad investment. Sources differ as to the cause; the investor she entrusted with her money was either a conman who swindled her or died before returning the money to her.
William Buckland succeeded in having Mary Anning awarded an annuity, albeit a very small one, by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the British government in recognition of her services to science.
In 1845, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which in the 19th century meant certain death, as there was no treatment other than the administration of laudanum to relieve the unbearable pain. When the members of the Geological Society learned of her cancer and renewed impoverishment, they raised money to support her in the last phase of her life. The newly founded Dorset County Museum made her an honorary member.
After two years of suffering, Mary Anning died in 1847 at the age of 48. After her death, Henry de la Beche gave a eulogy for her at the Geological Society; it was the first eulogy there for a woman.
A stained-glass window was installed in the local church in her honor and memory in 1850.
It is only in recent decades that Mary Anning has been recognized as one of the most important and extraordinary paleontologists. Today half a dozen extinct animal species bear her name and in the wider universe, both volcanic areas on Venus and an asteroid are named after her in recognition of her contributions.
Mary Anning's most important specimens are now on display at the Natural History Museum in London, which has an entire section devoted to her. The Lyme Regis Museum, commissioned in 1901 by a nephew of Elizabeth Philpots and highly popular today, has further fossils and information on display.
In 2019, Evie Swire, a then nine-year-old girl from Dorset, launched a fundraising campaign to raise money for a statue of Mary Anning in Lyme Regis. With the help of her mother and under the patronage of David Attenborough, Tracy Chevalier and Prof. Alice Roberts, biologist and anthropologist at the University of Birmingham, enough money was raised to commission the sculptor Dennis Dutton to create a bronze statue. On May 22, 2022, the statue was unveiled in a ceremony and presented to Mary Anning's home town.
Despite the knowledge we have today about Mary Anning’s achievements, many secrets and questions remain to which only she could have provided the answers. During her lifetime, hardly anyone attached importance to her person, her emotional life and her relationships. She lived as a woman in a man's world and was used by men to further their own careers. Some were to a certain degree her friends, but she knew her class and social status in relation to the educated, socially better-off gentlemen and was aware that she had to maintain a respectful distance. Her economic survival was at stake. Only a few of her private letters have survived; these indicate an independent spirit, warmth and compassion. Letters, diary entries and correspondence from visitors and friends portray Mary Anning as a modest, sensitive, motherly and religious woman who was very patient and who particularly enjoyed the company of children. When she had money, she gave to even poorer neighbors and to the sick. At the same time, she was exposed to ridicule as she did not look like a woman who had adapted to the times. As a strong, robust, sober-minded woman who was committed to her business, she was “masculine.” It should be borne in mind that “feminine” meant that a woman had adapted to the patriarchy and was corseted in both senses of the word. Mary Anning could not afford to present herself as “feminine”; perhaps she also did not want to. To some of her contemporaries she seemed self-confident, at times even arrogant. Nevertheless, she was not arrogant enough, because she was always overly generous with her knowledge, her abilities and her willingness to help (Pierce, Chapter 4 “Reptiles and Relationships” and Chapter 5 “Her Spheres of Excellence”).
The numerous “handicaps” she had to endure in life are obvious:
-She was a woman; no one expected a woman to play any role in the great scientific revolution of the 19th century.
-She came from the destitute working class.
-She had no formal education and no chance of gaining the education she would have been entitled to at Oxford or Cambridge.
-She only knew the rough, rural dialect of the Dorset area, which isolated her linguistically.
-She remained an unmarried woman, which in Victorian society was completely at odds with the female ideal. A woman's goal in life was to marry, bear children and devote herself to raising them while remaining herself completely without rights.
-She shook the foundations of the prevailing world view.
No biography can capture the uniqueness of a life. And this applies in particular to the attempt to understand not only the scientist, but also the woman Mary Anning. What is certain, however, is that any attempt reveals two narratives: in one, it is the narrative of a Mary Anning named after a deceased sister - which raises questions about her sense of identity and self-worth - a Mary Anning who remained a victim of poverty and a victim of Victorian patriarchalism all her life, who worked tirelessly yet was denied recognition by the gentlemen geologists and who was ultimately rejected or passed over by them. And in the second one, it is the narrative of a powerful, strong, fearless and unflinching Mary Anning, a woman full of curiosity and a desire to learn. A woman who showed what was possible through intelligence, a deep commitment to research and passion. A brilliant, amazing woman who always remained her own boss, who refused to be told what she could or could not do. She was trapped in her social framework, but was not afraid to instruct or correct the learned men. A woman with an empathetic heart who developed a profound understanding of the prehistoric creatures, largely teaching herself through her own practical and pragmatic research. A woman with a sparkling spirit, unerring intuition and a crystal-clear mind that made her the greatest early scientist. A woman who, despite all obstacles, proved that she was born, lived and researched in the right place at the right time. A woman who made the impossible possible. Today, many people bow before this woman in recognition of both sides of a woman who changed the world in her own way, and to whom we owe the foundation of the science that connects us to our own history: paleontology.
(Text from 2022; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2024.)
Please consult the German version for additional information (pictures, sources, videos, bibliography).
Quotes
The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone. (Mary Anning)
Miss Anning of Lyme, contributed to assist them. This lady, devoting herself to science, explored the frowing and precipitous cliffs there, when the furious spring-tide conspired with the howling tempest to overthrow them, and rescued from the gaping ocean, sometimes at the peril of her life, the few specimens which originated all the fact and ingenious theories of those persons, whose names must be ever remembered with sentiments of liveliest gratitude. (From the eulogy of Henry de la Beche at the Royal Geological Society. Pierce, S. 122 in: Hawkins, Memories of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri, London 1834)
Dear kind-hearted child! Amidst all her sufferings to have thought of me and my comfort: as to my remembering her, never, whilst life remains, can I forget the transient vision of her friendship. Oh! madam, had you heard her kind pious conversations with me when we were alone, you would say that I was the most ungrateful of beings if I ever forgot her. Although so young, her mind was so heavenly gifted, that not to be doing good was to her impossible: and I trust that, the trials which in this world I am doomed to encounter, I shall think on her pious example, and submit without a murmur to the decrees of Providence; convinced that he only afflicts for wise purposes .…(From a letter of condolence from Mary Anning on the occasion of the death of the 15-year-old girl Frances August Bell. Pierce, p. 130)
Literature & Sources
FILM: Ammonite, directed by Francis Lee, with Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan, 2021
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