Searching For Mary Anning.

I must admit that I didn’t know anything about Mary Anning until eleven days ago. I was scrolling through Wikipedia to see what events occurred on March 9^th in history and saw, ‘Died 1847 – Mary Anning, English palaeontologist (b. 1799)’. I clicked on her name and began reading her story. I found it fascinating, especially as she lived in Lyme Regis which is only 67 miles away from here. Her story is quite tragic in parts. She was one of ten children born to Richard and Molly Anning. Only Mary and her brother Joseph survived to adulthood. There had been a previous Mary who had died aged four when her clothes caught alight while putting wood shavings on the fire, so Mary was named after her late sister. The family lived so close to the sea that the house was often flooded during storms. When Mary was only fifteen months old she was fortunate to survive another tragic incident. She had been left in the care of three local women. They were watching an outdoor circus performance when a thunderstorm began. They were sheltering under a tree which was hit by lightning and the three women were killed instantly, but Mary miraculously survived. The incident according to local lore changed her from being a sickly child to being bright, lively, and full of curiosity.

Mary Anning & Me.

Her father died in 1810 aged only 44 which left the family in dire straits. They supplemented their meagre income by collecting fossils from the nearby cliffs and selling them to visitors to the popular seaside town as ‘curios’. This was such things as ammonites, belemnites, and vertebrae. In 1811 Mary’s brother Joseph dug up the skull of an ichthyosaur and later Mary found the rest of the skeleton. One of the family’s best customers was Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, a wealthy collector from Lincolnshire who arranged an auction of their fossils which raised £400, a large sum of money in those days. 

It was dangerous work digging along the cliff face. Mary was again lucky to escape sudden death when a cliff fall killed her faithful pet dog called Tray. Her reputation continued to grow however, and in 1823 she discovered a complete Plesiosaurus. Later, in 1828 she found the first British example of a pterosaur. Mary’s only education had been learning to read at Sunday school, but despite this she became an expert in her field and wrote about and drew detailed drawings of her discoveries. It was a big local event in 1826 when she opened a shop in Lyme Regis displaying her finds. Even King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony visited her shop in 1844 and purchased an ichthyosaur skeleton.

The real tragedy is that because Mary was a woman she was shunned by the scientific community. She was not allowed to join the Geological Society. When her discoveries were described in journals and scientific papers she wasn’t even credited as the person who found them. It was she who suggested to one of the leading geologists William Buckland that the conical objects known as bezoar stones were really the fossilised faeces of ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs. Buckland later named the objects coprolites. A celebrated geologist called Henry De la Beche produced a famous painting called Duria Antiquior, based on Mary’s finds, and sales of a lithograph print of this picture helped Mary financially. Finally William Buckland persuaded the government to award Mary an annual pension of £25. She died in 1847 from breast cancer aged only 47 and was buried alongside her brother Joseph and other siblings in the local churchyard.

Duria Antiquior,

I was pleased that I had finally learned about her because for the last couple of years I have enjoyed getting out and about locally and visiting the graves of famous people. Previously I had visited George Orwell, Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas Hardy, Laurie Lee, Siegfried Sassoon, and several others. I had been wondering who to visit this year and along came Mary. When a friend of mine said she was going to Lyme Regis on Sunday I knew I had to go. 

On The Cobb.

It was a beautiful sunny morning when we set off before 9.00. It only took about 85 minutes to drive down to Lyme Regis, and we parked just by the famous seawall known as The Cobb. The first thing we did was to go for a bracing walk along the top of The Cobb. This place became world famous when it featured in the film The French Lieutenants Woman with Meryl Streep. John Fowles who wrote the original book lived in Lyme Regis. Jane Austen was also a frequent visitor to this area and the town is mentioned in her book Persuasion which I must admit I haven’t read. After that, I left my friend and set off in pursuit of Mary Anning.

The first thing I found was a statue of Mary and Tray looking out towards the cliffs where she made many of her discoveries. It was unveiled only last year by archaeologist Alice Roberts and a schoolgirl called Evie Swire who along with her mother led the campaign for a statue. I asked a passer by to take my photo with the statue and then headed to nearby St Margaret’s Churchyard to find Mary’s grave. I thought it might be difficult to locate, but it was easy because I was amused to find that somebody, probably children had left little plastic dinosaurs by her headstone. My next stop was the museum. This has been built on the actual site of Mary’s family home. 

The pavement outside is inlaid with ammonites. I spent about an hour looking at Mary’s astonishing discoveries. (See pictures) I think one of them is on loan from the British Museum, back in Lyme Regis after nearly 200 years. As well as the fossils, there are many other things of interest including the clothes worn by Kate Winslet in a recent film about Mary called Ammonite. The final thing I wanted to do was walk in Mary’s footsteps along the cliff face and see if I could find any fossils myself. 

Fossil Hunting.

As I walked along the beach by the cliff the pebbles got larger and larger until they became boulders. I realised how dangerous it was, stepping from rock to rock you could easily lose your footing, slip, and break a leg, especially at my age. I didn’t find any actual ammonites, but I could see where they had once lay and made an impression on the rocks. I took some photos of these. (See photos) There were plenty of other fossil hunters along the beach. There must be thousands of visitors here every year with the same idea. As I hopped from rock to rock and looked out at the sea a famous quote by Sir Isaac Newton came into my head, “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Eventually I re-joined my friend further along the beach and sat in the pleasant Spring sunshine. About 3.30 we headed home and were back in Westbury by 5.00 after an enjoyable few hours by the sea. I was pleased that I had made the effort to learn about Mary Anning. It is great that she is finally getting the recognition that she deserves, and children are learning about her work in making some of the most important discoveries of the 19^th century.

Mary Anning 1799-1847.