All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal. Volume XIII

1865

McGlashan Collection AP4 A4 v.13

London: Chapman and Hall

As described by Charles Dickens in All the Year Round, Mary Anning (1799-1847) was a ‘self-taught geologist, the daughter of a Lyme carpenter’. Born on the Jurassic Coast of southern England, Anning followed in her father’s footsteps to become a fossil collector and dealer. In 1811, aged only 12, she found the first complete skeleton of an Ichthyosaur, and later, the first British example of a Pterodactyl. As a woman, Anning did not often receive the credit deserved for her scientific discoveries. There is no doubt that she was instrumental in determining ‘scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth’. In 2010, Anning was recognised by the Royal Society as one of the ten women ‘who have most influenced the history of science.’