Mary Anning (1799-1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and self-taught paleontologist.
She was born in Lyme Regis, in Dorset, England, part of what is now called the Jurassic Coast. Growing up, she and her brother joined their father on fossil-hunting expeditions, digging ammonite and belemnite shells from the crumbling cliffs and selling them to collectors and tourists. After her father died, the fossils enterprise became the family’s sole income source, and she continued it.
Throughout her life, she made several extraordinary discoveries, including a complete plesiosaurus and the first pterosaur found in Britain. To better understand her findings, she read scientific literature, dissected modern animals with similar structures to the fossils she found, wrote her observations about the fossils, and made accurate drawings of them. Anning’s discoveries helped to understand prehistoric life and shaped the science of paleontology, though she did not get full credit for her contributions to the field during her life.
In 2018, Evie Swire, a ten-year-old amateur fossil collector, asked her mother, Anya Pearson, why Anning’s story was not taught in school and wherein their hometown of Lyme Regis was her statue. That question had encouraged the mother and daughter to launch the Mary Anning Rocks campaign, crowdfunding for a sculpture of Anning.
Within four years, they raised more than £100,000, and on May 21st, 2022, the date of Anning’s 223rd birthday, her statue was unveiled at the seafront at Long Entry, Lyme Regis.
Created by the English sculptress Denise Dutton, the life-size bronze statue depicts Anning looking over the bay on the Jurassic Coast, where she found many of her discoveries. She marches toward the shore, holding a geological hammer in one hand and a fossil in the other; her dog Trey escorts her.
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