Mary Anning’s Biography

Mary Anning was a self-taught and impoverished fossil hunter. Her remarkable inventions paved the direction for modern-day palaeontology, as stated in Mary Anning’s Biography. With the help of her carefully recorded finds, she enhanced the human proficiency of ancient existence. However, until some time back, her work had been overlooked and dismissed because of her social status and gender. 

Mary Anning’s discoveries of several fossils remain among the greatest finds in her field of studies. Mary Anning’s biography is a truly inspiring tale of achievements.

Early Years in Mary Anning’s Biography

Mary Anning spent her early life in England in Lyme Regis, a seaside resort town, in 1799. It had established itself as an economical alternative to other resorts like Bath. 

The sea, however, receded eventually; nonetheless, the sedimentary rocks that helped form the seabed remained. There were also animal remains buried slowly into the seabed that had become stones.

It was quite likely that Mary Annings’ parents knew about this. Molly Anning and Richard were her parents. Mary Anning’s biography that Shelly Emling wrote mentioned that Richard Anning’s father was a cabinetmaker, and he had chosen Lyme Regis because it had the potential of attracting the tourists who would be looking for some fresh sea air. However, he soon turned into a beachcomber and started selling tiny fossils as souvenirs to the tourists who came on vacation.

Mary Anning’s biography says that Anning was nearly 6, and she would regularly be with her father and help him find, excavate and clean fossils.

A catastrophe hit them, and Anning’s father died in 1810. The biographer Emling in 

Mary Anning Biography had written about Mary Anning’s discoveries that helped change the world. In this biography, it is believed that Richard’s death was caused by his tuberculosis and a dangerous fall from Lyme Regis. When Richard died, Molly left a widowed mother with two children and was also carrying their third child. To make it worse, they were protestants and didn’t follow the church. Anning was encouraged by the religious practices to read and learn. However, it didn’t help her upgrade her status in her neighbourhood.

Mary Anning’s facts

It is not obvious what had prompted Anning to go back to work even after her father died. She had an intrigue for the fossils, and perhaps she missed those days that went by hunting for fossils with her father. 

A few historians like Hugh Torrens, who studied palaeontology history in Britain, say that Anning’s mother, with her support, pursued the business of fossils after Richard had died. In any way, it is written by Emling that after Richard died in a few months, Mary Anning uncovered a huge ammonite. A tourist woman purchased it for almost a crown, and this was much more than anybody who had paid her father for selling a fossil. 

Mary Anning’s Discoveries:

In less than one year, Anning and her brother unleashed a fossil. It was baffling for the scientists. The Fossil was around 17 feet long, and it had sixty vertebrae. It took a very long time for them to excavate this fossil. A word had been going around in the town that the Annings had discovered a monstrous creature. A small part of this fossil appeared to be a fish; however, another part appeared like it was a crocodile. A fossil like this was never seen before, not in the London Science Establishment. It was named Ichthyosaur, which means fish lizard. Such fossils were found back; however, the specimen that the Annings found was one of its kind because it was a complete skeleton. It had thrown the world of science into a frenzy.

Anning was not involved in the academic part of the fossil discoveries. However,   she always knew that she found an extraordinary fossil, Ichthyosaur, which was sold to a tourist for a whopping 23 pounds. This was huge money at that time and sufficient for her to feed the Annings for six months, according to Emling. The tourist donated this fossil to a museum, which eventually was kept in the British Museum and paved the way for it to be held in the Natural History Museum of London. This is a Museum where only skull remains are kept.

According to Mary Anning’s Biography, Mary Anning pursued hunting for fossils throughout her teenage years. From the year 1815 to around 1819, she found many other complete skeletons. Most of them were kept in museums or played an integral role in a lecture. Almost all these men did not mention Mary Anning, who extracted and cleaned the fossil. She helped the men become famous; however, they ignored mentioning her.

Her major finding was controversial, even more controversial than the ichthyosaur. Mary Anning discovered the skeleton of an extinct four-legged marine reptile called plesiosaurus. In a few years, she had also found a pterosaur, the wind reptile from the dinosaur era, and it was discovered outside Germany. Mary Anning, in her life, went on to find several extinct fish species and other creatures from the sea. The English palaeontologist also became a pioneer of fossils in studying faeces of fossils.

Mary Anning’s Discoveries’ Scientific Recognition

The males had exclusivity for scientific recognition and were slow in recognising Anning’s contribution. It is a great divine instance that an ignorant and poor girl was so gifted that she got to a level of knowledge in the application that she was interacting with professors on the subject. They all acknowledged her proficiency and that she had a keen understanding of science more than anyone else of her time.

Conclusion:

It was not Anning’s gender alone, but also that she was not formally educated and lacked resources and a country accent, because of which they could dismiss her contribution. Besides, people were more interested in recording things like wealthy people donating to museums than someone who found it. The establishment then didn’t care much about Mary Anning’s discoveries.

The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London disseminated her obituary. This was the very first time that they had someone from the society who was a non-member. Until many years later, humankind didn’t admit women’s contributions to science.