25 April 2014

The first extraordinary thing that happened to Mary Anning occurred when she was only a baby, just over a year old, in fact. One warm summer night she and her family went along with some friends to see a travelling circus, which was visiting the seaside town where Mary lived. The circus was magical and they all gazed, holding their breath as dancers balanced on the backs of racing ponies. There was a lady with a beard and dogs who jumped through blazing hoops of fire. One of Mary’s neighbours picked Mary up so she could get a better view of a clown in an enormous pair of boots. But suddenly, thunder began to crash overhead and everyone rushed to take shelter from the rain.!

“Quick, we can stay dry under this tree,” Mary’s neighbour called as she hurried with the little girl towards a giant elm tree.!

It was then that the terrible thing happened. With a dreadful flash and sizzle, the tree was struck by a bolt of lightning. By some miracle Mary survived and from that day on her family

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She Sells Sea Shells!The Life of Mary Anning ‘Fossil Lady’ 1799 - 1847!By Claire Naylor & Lucy Moore

25 April 2014

believed the lightning was lucky and that it had worked a spell on Mary, making her especially bright and brilliant.!

Mary and her brother Joseph lived with their mother and father in a small house near the sea. In those days, most children didn’t go to school so they were expected to help with grown-up work. Mary would spend the mornings washing the clothes and hanging them out to dry on the washing line. But when all the jobs in the house were done she was allowed to knock on the door of her father’s carpentry workshop, where Joe helped his father make wooden furniture and rocking horses. When Mary arrived, Joe too was allowed to leave for the day.!

“Hurry up, Joe, the tide’s on its way out,” Mary would call as they clambered down to the rocky beach to do what they loved best – beachcombing. When the tide went out it left behind all sorts of treasures – new shells, old bottles, tangled pieces of seaweed and once even an old boot that Joe decided must have belonged to a pirate called Sid. But of all the things they found, the most exciting of all were the sea-creatures that had been turned to stone.!

“Come and see this Snake-Stone,” Mary shouted, running across the sand to show Joe a small, curled-up snake embedded in rock.!

“Well, I’ve found some Devil’s Fingers,” Joe let Mary touch the shiny stones he’d found, that had been polished by the sea and sand.!

The two children would fill their pockets with these treasures and sometimes even sell them to the holiday-makers who visited Lyme Regis. Every day Mary and Joe stayed on the beach until the orange sun set far out on the horizon, then their mother would call across the sands for them.!

“Mary, Joe, time for bed. Hurry now.” Only then would they make their way home, shivering in the sea-breeze, their legs streaked with salt, their boots crunching with sand, and their buckets full to the brim.!

One afternoon, when their parents were out visiting neighbours, Mary and Joe laid out their finds on the kitchen table. They were sorting them into piles and wondering what kind of animals these strange stones had been when they were alive, when the wind began to howl outside. A storm was brewing.!

“Hurry, close all the windows so the rain can’t come in,” called Mary as she rushed from one room to another. Just as she said this a huge wave crashed over the house, flooding the whole downstairs. The children raced up to the bedroom to escape the tide of water. As they stared out of their window at the wild

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The shore at Lyme Regis in about 1835

25 April 2014

sea, wondering when their parents would be home, Mary turned to her brother.!

“I think this is how one of our creatures must feel,” she said.!

“How do you mean?” Joe asked, because sometimes his sister had strange ideas.!

“It’s like the waves want to wash us out onto the shore,” she told him. “Wouldn’t that be amazing? To see the world where our shells and creatures came from.”!

Eventually Mary and Joe managed to escape the flooded house by climbing out of a window to safety. Afterwards as Joe huddled by the fire, Mary’s clothes were hardly dry before she raced off to the beach again, for she knew that storms always washed up new treasure, waiting to be discovered.!

Sometimes, when Mary half-remembered that fierce light from the night she was struck by lightning and the crackle in the darkness, she knew that she was waiting for something very important to happen to her, though she wasn’t sure what it might be.!

One morning, as Mary and Joe scoured the cliffs, which often crumbled away beneath their feet to reveal new bones, Joseph called out, “Come over here and see what I’ve found.”!

Mary carefully climbed up onto the ledge where he was standing and saw, deep in the shimmering

grey rock, the skull of a monster.!

“What is it, Joe?” Mary whispered in amazement. “It looks like some kind of dragon.”!

“I don’t know. It could be a dolphin. Or maybe a crocodilly,” Joe suggested. “But there are no crocodillies in England.”!

The skull of the monster was as tall as Mary and far too big for them to carry by themselves as it was buried so deep in the rock. They had to call some friends to help them to carry it into the Town Hall, which was the only place they could find big enough to store it.  A crowd of people gathered, hoping for a glimpse of the monster. Some were even afraid to touch it, in case it came to life again.!

But Mary wasn’t scared, and when nobody was listening she put her head close to the monster’s and whispered, “Now we just need to find the rest of you. I promise I will.”!

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A skull like the one Mary discovered

25 April 2014

Even though Mary was sure that the rest of the monster’s skeleton was out there somewhere in the rocks, it took a very long time to find. Then one day, many months later, just as she was beginning to give up hope of ever finding him, Mary came across some tiny bones, deep in the rock. They were connected to a much bigger body. Mary shivered and wrapped her shawl tightly around her. Once more she had that magical sensation she felt whenever she found a wonderful stone.!

“This is it,” she said to herself. “It’s what I’ve been hunting for.” As quickly as she could Mary brushed the shale away with her hands and the hem of her dress. She saw that the monster’s body was three or four times longer than she was.!

Weeks later, when the whole skeleton had been carried back to shore and went on display in the town it caused great excitement. Nothing like this monster had ever been seen before. Now the whole body had been revealed, it looked something like a swimming dragon.!

Clever men came all the way from London to see him. But although they praised Mary for her discovery, patting her on the head and saying, “What a clever girl you are,” they never asked her what she thought it might be or where she thought it might have come from. Later, when Mary read about her monster’s arrival in London in the newspapers, her name wasn’t mentioned, only the name of the man who had bought it from her.!

Mary’s family had never been rich, but when she was eleven years old her father died and there was suddenly even less money to pay for food and bills. Even though Mary, Joe and their mother worked as hard as they could to help, often doing odd jobs in the village, they were still cold and hungry. Eventually their mother had to sell some of the furniture just to pay for food and wood for their fire. Now that Joe worked as an apprentice-boy, Mary had to go out onto the beach alone each day. She was always looking out for treasures to sell, but as it was winter, hardly any visitors came to the table she had set up outside the pub to show off what she had found.!

Mary wished she could go to school, because there, she imagined, she might learn about the creatures from the sea. But there was no money to spare for that. Instead, whenever she had time to spare she would cut up dead fish she had collected to try to work out how these real animals were related to the creatures whose bones she found laid out in the rocks. Carefully, her tongue held tight between her teeth as she concentrated, she would draw their frail skeletons. But she had no one to ask any of the millions of questions that swirled around in her head, and no books to look things up in.!

That was until one frosty winter morning as Mary walked, with Tray her dog, along the path to the beach. She heard someone call out her name.!

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A portrait of Mary Anning with her faithful dog Tray, based on a portrait from 1842. The famous Golden Cap outcrop is visible in the background.

25 April 2014

“Mary?” It was an odd-looking gentleman in a shabby, black silk top hat. He ran to catch up with her. “Your mother told me I’d find you here.”!

“Who are you?” Mary stopped walking and the man introduced himself. His name was William Buckland and he was a teacher from a university at Oxford.!

“I think perhaps you can help me,” he said, explaining to Mary that he was looking for fossils and he had heard that she knew where they were better than anyone else.!

“What’s a fossil?” Mary asked him curiously. When he told her that this was the word scientists used for the bones of the creatures in the rocks that Mary found, she agreed that he could come with her to the beach to see for himself how she discovered them. After only a few minutes of beachcombing, he called out to Mary.!

“What do you think these are?” He held up a long, grey stone up to the sun. Its surface was lumpy and rounded.!

“I can’t really say in front of a gentleman.” Mary looked down at her feet.!

“Why ever not?” Buckland asked.!

“Because what they are….” Mary said shyly, “in my opinion…is poo. Old animal poo turned to stone to be precise.”!

“You know, Mary, I think you could be right.” He laughed as he placed a few of the stones in his bucket.!

A few days later Mary received a letter from him, telling her he believed she was right: the stones were hardened animal faeces, and so he had given them a name of their own, a scientific name – coprolites.!

To celebrate the discovery of the coprolites, Buckland invited Mary to tea. His house was unlike anything they had ever seen before. The rooms were full of books and stuffed dead animals and animal skeletons in glass cases, and piles of papers and sketches covered every surface. The two of them talked for many hours about the possibility that the fossils Mary found might be the remains of creatures that had lived many years ago, because such animals were nowhere to be found any more.!

“I think perhaps they were creatures that God made before he changed his mind,” Mary said tentatively. “Maybe they were his mistakes.” Buckland listened carefully until his butler brought in tea.!

“Now what can I tempt you with?” Buckland asked as he lifted silver tops off plates, one at a time, with great flourishes. “Here is a very delicious roast hedgehog. Or you might prefer mice fried on toast?” Mary could not help staring at him.!

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Coprolites…..’old animal poo turned to stone’.

Dr William Buckland

25 April 2014

“Goodness.” She tried not to appear too surprised. “We generally only have stew in our house.”!

“Ah, yes. But I am trying very hard to eat my way through the animal kingdom,” Buckland smiled. “I believe it’s important to know how everything tastes. For imagine if a kangaroo were the most delicious thing ever and we were missing out by eating boring old chickens instead? But I do have some bread and butter – and a chocolate cake – for my less adventurous guests.” Buckland tucked his napkin into his collar. “Now tell me, Mary, have you found any more sea-dragons lately?”!

“No,” Mary said. “But I have found another type of dragon. A flying one, I think, as he seems to have wings.”!

“Interesting.” Buckland frowned. “I must say, Mary, it’s a great shame you are not a man. You would be most helpful to me at my university.”!

“I wish I were too, Mr Buckland.” She shook her head. “For I have a great many ideas about my creatures and I’m always longing to learn more.”!

Mary remained friends with William Buckland for many years and he would often buy fossils from her, always being careful to tell his scientists friends that they were “Mary’s creatures” so that people knew how important the work was that she was doing. He also sent her books and magazines so she could learn everything there was to know about her creatures. Before long she knew more than any of the clever gentlemen in the universities knew about fossils.!

All this time Mary was saving up any spare money she had, until one day she had enough to do something she had always dreamed of. She opened a real shop of her own. Mary called it Anning’s Fossil Depot. Joe made a smart wooden sign for her to hang outside and she filled the window with her most beautiful and interesting fossils. So rare were many of them that people came from all over the world to gaze in her window. Scientists and geologists travelled from as far away as America. Even King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony visited Mary’s shop and bought one of her large swimming dragon fossils to take back to his palace in Europe with him.!

One day, as Mary was busily polishing some new stones, a breathless Buckland raced into the Depot.!

“Mary, look. I’ve come all the way from Oxford with some incredible news. I had to tell you in person.”!

“Let me guess,” Mary laughed. “You’ve just tasted a tiger and it’s absolutely delicious.”!

“No, although I did try some Bluebottle flies last week and they were truly the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.”

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An illustration of Mary Anning selling fossils.

25 April 2014

said Buckland. “But look here…” He thrust a newspaper into Mary’s hand. “It’s him. Your sea dragon.”!

“What about him?” In the newspaper was a picture of one of Mary’s monsters, one Buckland had helped her sell to a gentleman from Vienna several years before.!

“They’ve finally given him a name,” Buckland said excitedly. “And it’s very grand indeed. They’ve decided to call him Ichthyosaurus. They think he lived thousands and thousands of years ago.”!

“Ichthyosaurus.” Mary said the word carefully, over and over again, and then began to laugh happily. “I like it. It suits him very well.”!

For Mary to have a name for her monster was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. She was also becoming known as an important scientist in her own right, even though women were not yet allowed to join the societies where they discussed geology and fossils. The truth was that Mary felt incredibly lucky that in her life she had been born in a place so full of magic that she was able to uncover these incredible mysteries. And when she wasn’t busy in her shop or speaking with other experts about fossils, she loved nothing in the world more than walking along the beach with Tray.!

“This is what I was born to do,” she said to her dog one morning as they watched the sun rise over the misty sea. “It’s what the lightning was telling me all those years ago – that life is full of miracles, it’s just up to us to seek them out. Like bones in the sand.” Then together they walked towards the horizon in the bright light of the morning sun, their heads bent to the sand, looking for new treasure.!

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An ichthyosaur (or ‘fish-lizard’) fossil discovered by Mary Anning, now at the Natural History Museum

25 April 2014

If Mary Anning were alive today and visited London, she would see something that would make her very happy indeed. Inside the magnificent Natural History Museum is a room filled with many of her most remarkable treasures. Here she would be able to see not only her Ichthyosaurus but also her ‘sea-dragon,’ now called Plesiosaurus, and her ‘flying dragon,’ which has been named Pterodactylus. These are the very fossils Mary discovered on the beach at Lyme Regis all those years ago. She would also learn that the special stones and skeletons that she collected as a girl were not “god’s mistakes” but in fact dinosaurs that lived in the sea nearly 200 million years ago. In this room there is even a large picture of Mary, with Tray lying by her feet. !

And as Mary made her way home on the bus to Lyme Regis, she might even hear some schoolchildren singing a nursery rhyme written about her:!

She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.!

The shells she sells are sea-shells, I’m sure.!

For if she sells sea-shells on the sea shore!

Then I’m sure she sells sea-shore shells.!

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Copyright of Clare Naylor and Lucy Moore 2013 !

For adults, we highly recommend Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

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We can meet a ‘Mary Anning character’ at the Natural History Museum today as she explains her work to us

A pen and ink sketch of a Plesiosaur by Mary Anning, 1824.

25 April 2014

Some extra information !Who was Mary Anning? Mary Anning found the fossils of prehistoric animals. Today many children like finding out about dinosaurs. When Mary Anning was a child, no one knew about these long-dead animals. Mary's fossil-hunting helped change the way people thought about the world.!When did she live? Mary was born in 1799. She grew up while Britain was at war with France. She was 16 in the year of the Battle of Waterloo (1815). She was alive when Victoria became Queen, in 1837. Mary Anning died in 1847.!Why is she famous?Mary Anning was not trained as ascientist, but her finds changed science. She came from a poor family. She made only one trip away from home in her whole life. Famous scientists came to see her. They wanted to see the fossils she found.!How fossils changed things Finding dinosaursOther people were also fossil-hunters. In 1822, Mary Mantell found a prehistoric reptile. It was named Iguanodon. In 1841, Richard Owen made up the name 'dinosaur', which means 'terrible lizard'.!People went hunting for dinosaurs all over the world.!Why are fossils important?People had found fossils before Mary Anning. No-one knew what they were. Were they animals turned to stone by magic? Were they animals that died in The Flood, like in the Bible story, Noah's Ark?!Clues to life long ago Fossils give us clues about how life was long ago. Some rocks are very old. If fossils are found in very old rocks, life must be very old too.!Scientists think that life began in the seas many millions of years ago. The first fish swam around over 400 million years ago. The age of dinosaurs began about 240 million years ago and ended 65 million years ago.!Change and evolutionPrehistoric animals were not the same as living animals. Some animals died out. Different animals took their place. This is called evolution.!How evolution works was explained by Charles Darwin, not long after Mary Anning died. Her fossils had helped scientists understand how things began.!From From http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/mary_anning/

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