Mary Anning was a fossil hunter and palaeontologist whose geological finds were among the most important of all time. She unearthed many significant fossils that helped people understand more about the prehistoric world.

Mary Anning's Early Life

Mary Anning was born on 21st May 1799 in Lyme Regis, England. Mary's family was poor. Out of ten children, only Mary and her brother James survived childhood. Mary's father was a cabinet maker and carpenter who also sold fossils he found to tourists. He taught Mary and James how to find and clean fossils from the beaches of Lyme Regis. They then sold these fossils (or 'curios' as they were sometimes known) to supplement the family's income. Her father died suddenly in 1810 of tuberculosis and as a result of previous injuries.

Soft clay cliffs on the beaches of Lyme Regis

Early Discoveries

In 1811, when Mary was 12, her brother James found a four-foot ichthyosaur skull. A few months later, Mary unearthed the rest of the skeleton. They sold the whole specimen to a local man called Henry Hoste Henley, who was lord of the manor of Colway. He purchased the skeleton for around £23. Later, he sold it to another collector who displayed it in the London Museum of Natural History. At this time, people were starting to become much more interested in the the prehistoric world, and finds like the ichtyosaur were helping people to understand what dinosaurs were and when they lived. It was the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton to be discovered.

An illustration of the ichthyosaur skull found by Joseph Anning

Growing Expertise

As the years went by, Mary continued to find and sell fossils to support herself. She started to develop a reputation amonst collectors, and her important finds were often auctioned to scientists. In 1823, she discovered the first complete Plesiosaurus and then the first British example of a pterosaur (a type of flying reptile).

Despite not having much of an education, Mary read all the scientific literature she could so that she understood her findings. She was skilled at creating technical drawings of her discoveries too, surprising other palaeontologists that a poor woman could be so knowledgeable.

A technical drawing and letter describing a Plesiodolichodeirus by Mary Anning

Later Life

By 1826, Mary had made enough money to purchase a house with a shop, which she called Anning's Fossil Depot. By now, she had such a good reputation from her fossil finds that people came from Europe and America to explore her specimens.

Despite this, Mary was never welcomed into the scientific community. As a working-class woman, she was often treated as an outsider by other scientists.

Mary Anning with her dog, Tray

Death and Legacy

Mary Anning died in 1847 at the age of 47 from breast cancer. By the time of her death, the Geological Society recognised the contribution she had made to palaeontology and raised money to gift a stained-glass window to St Michael's Church in her memory. Henry de la Beche, the president of the Geological Society, read out a eulogy at a meeting. This was the first time that a eulogy had been read for a woman, let alone someone who wasn't a member of the society.

In 2018, a campaign was started by a local schoolgirl, Evie Swire, to have Mary Anning commemorated in Lyme Regis. In 2022, a statue was unveiled showing Mary and her dog overlooking Black Ven, where she made many of her discoveries.

The statue of Mary Anning and her dog in Lyme Regis