Mary Anning

Anning's life has been made the subject of several books and articles but little is known about her life, and many people are unaware of her contributions to paleontology in its early days as a scientific discipline. How can someone described as 'the greatest fossilist the world ever knew' be so obscure that even many paleontologists are not aware of her contribution? She was a woman in a man's England.

After her father died in 1810, the Anning family lived in poverty and anonymity, selling fossils from Lyme Regis, until the early 1820s, when the profesional fossil collector decided to auction his fine fossil collection and donate the proceeds to the Anning family. He felt that the Annings should not live in such "considerable difficulty" considering that they have "found almost all the fine things, which have been submitted to scientific investigation...".

Anning helped discover the first specimen of Ichthyosaurus to be known by the scientific community of London sometime between 1809 and 1811. She made many great discoveries but her most important scientific find was first plesiosaur which caused the Annings to become legitimate and respected fossilists in the scientific community. In spite of this recognition, the majority of her finds ended up in museums and personal collections without credit being given to her as the discoverer of the fossils. Many scientists of the day could not believe that a young woman from such a deprived background could posses the knowledge and skills that she seemed to display.

In 1824, Lady Harriet Sivester wrote of Mary Anning: " ... 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. She fixes the bones on a frame with cement and then makes drawings and has them engraved ... 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."

SOURCE
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html