It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when fossils were not understood as the remains of creatures and plants that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. When Mary Anning ( (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) first began climbing the Jurassic outcrops near her home in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, most people thought her work (although most called it a hobby) was a waste of time. And most also mistook what she had found for something much more prosaic. In 1811, Mary and her brother found part of what would later be called an Ichthyosaurus skull, with Mary finding the rest of the animal a few months later.
Mary Anning Goes Unrecognized During her Life
They sold that find to William Bullock, a fossil collector who displayed it in London. Despite the interest it generated, at the time people still believed, generally, that the earth was only a few thousand years old. They persisted in calling the find a “Crocodile in a Fossil State.” It was sold to the British Museum under that name in 1819. Mary Anning would have sold it first for very little from inside her shop at what had been her late father’s cabinet-making business. The British Museum paid, at auction, more than £45, a considerable sum in those days.
Gradually, people in England’s scientific community began to appreciate the true age of the fossils Anning was finding in the Blue Lias cliffs outside Lyme Regis. In 1833, prospecting for fossils in winter when the cliffs were unstable and broke away from the bones she sought, her little dog was killed, an event that changed her life considerably. She realized not only that her constant companion had died, but that she might, for another few inches of rockfall, have died as well.
Indeed, Anning did not live a long and happy life, but rather a short and relatively unhappy one. As a slightly educated (she could read and write) girl from a lower-class family, she was not accorded the respect her contributions to our understanding of earth history her finds suggested would be appropriate.
Louis Agassiz alone recognized Anning's contributions
During her lifetime, only one scientist named a species after her, the usual means of recognizing those who significantly contribute to natural history. Only Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz did so, naming two fossil fish species after her, Acrodus anningiae and Belenstomus anningiae. He also hamed another species after Anning’s friend, Elizabeth Philpot. Both women had helped him examine fossil fish specimens when he visited Lyme Regis in 1834.
Several species were, however, named after Anning posthumously, and in 2010, the British Royal Society (men only when Anning lived) finally honored Anning among the ten most important female scientists during the Society’s 350-year history.
Anning died of cancer in 1847; learning of her illness, to its credit, the Geological Society helped with her final expenses. She was interred in the churchyard of St. Michaels. In 1850, the church unveiled a stained-glass window donated in Anning’s honor by the Geological Society. The inscription reads: “This window is sacred to the memory of Mary Anning of this parish, who died 9 March AD 1847 and is erected by the vicar and some members of the Geological Society of London in commemoration of her usefulness in furthering the science of geology, as also of her benevolence of heart and integrity of life.”
Tracy Chevalier Pens Fictionalized Story of Anning's Life
A fictionalized version of Anning’s life was published in 2009 by Tracy Chevalier. A consistently highly rated book, it weaves the high and low points of Anning’s real life into the story of how her work influenced world geology, paleontology and biology. The book’s title, Remarkable Creatures, might refer equally to Anning’s finds, and to her friendship with Elizabeth Philpot, a genteel Londoner of reduced means, who nonetheless contributes to making Anning’s discoveries known to the scientific establishment, acting as Anning’s close friend as well.
The Lyme Regis Chevalier describes is far different from the bustling coastal town of today, although even then, it was a holiday destination for those who believed sea air was good for body and soul. And one can still go on a sort of fossil hunt, by arranging in advance with several trek leaders. After a good fossil hunt, take a swim at the in-town beach. If all else fails, that is, you've found no fossils and it's a rainy day, you can buy fossils from in-town shops, much like the one Anning ran more than 150 years ago.
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Information for this article was located in McGowan, Christopher (2001), The Dragon Seekers, Persus Publishing, and in publications of the National Museum of Wales.
For information about local fossil trekking guides, visit the Lyme Regis website at www.lymeregis.org.
