Mary Anning
Country
Great Britain
Birth - Death
1799 - 1847
Occupation
Scientist
Description
Archaeologist, paleontologist and fossil hunter, renowned for a series of discoveries she made while fossil collecting in the rock formations around Lyme Regis. Her findings contributed to important changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth. An outcast to the male-dominated profession of her time, not receiving credit for her work and rejected as a member of the Geological Society of London. The only scientific writing of hers published in her lifetime appeared in the Magazine of Natural History in 1839, an extract from a letter that Anning had written to the magazine's editor questioning one of its claims. The Royal Society included Anning in a list of the ten British women who have most influenced the history of science (2010). Subject of the film 'Ammonite' (2019).
