Mary Anning's statue shows 'just how far we've come'
A Dorset Geologist says Mary Anning paved the way for women like her.
A Dorset geologist says the statue of Mary Anning recently installed in Lyme Regis shows just how far society has come.
The mother of palaeontology has now been given a permanent place in her home town. The statue was unveiled in front of crowds, inspired by her story.
The 19th century fossil-hunter was barred from the London Geological Society because she was a woman, despite her remarkable academic achievements.
By the age of 13 Anning had already discovered the skeleton of an Icthyosaur. That was just the first of many discoveries she made in her lifetime.
Saskia Elliott is a geologist in Dorset. She was there as the statue was unveiled. She said:
"For me, I really wanted to go. A) it was an excuse to go fossil hunting, which I never pass up, but also there were so many incredible speakers and it was such an incredible story that the Mary Anning Rocks team managed to do, I just wanted to go along and show my support.
"Mary Anning was a normal working class lady who picked up fossils to make ends meet but she also was an incredibly inspiring academic, not that she was allowed to be in academia at the time because she was a woman.
"The Geological Society of London, who was the main academic society, she was female, she wasn't allowed in.
"The fact that now someone like me is a member of the Geological Society of London, that shows just how far we've come.
Saskia added:
"It was quite incredible what the Mary Anning Rocks team did, they turned around and went 'why is there no statue to Mary Anning?' and they made it happen."
Mary Anning Rocks
The campaign was launched by Evie Swire, a schoolgirl from Lyme Regis, and her mother Anya Pearson.
Evie started ‘Mary Anning Rocks’ two years ago after finding out the collector did not have a monument anywhere.
Evie’s mother, Anya Pearson said it came from a conversation about a statue to suffragette Millicent Fawcett. Evie asked where Mary’s statue was. Anya said:
“I had to explain to her that Mary was working class, she was Victorian, she wasn’t seen as anybody of merit and that didn’t happen.
“As I was talking to her, her neck went red and blotchy with anger, and I thought ‘she’s angry and we should all be angry’ because this incredible daughter of Lyme is not just one of the most significant female scientists to come out of Dorset or the UK.
“So, it was more of an anger that she’d been forgotten. That’s how it came about.”
According to Saskia, Mary's story resonates with everyone who hears it. She says tourists come to the area hoping to do as Mary did, find fossils. She said:
"Tourists come down and they can see the sort of thing we're promoting on the Jurassic Coast.
"The fossils are known, but the people not so much, she is known worldwide but I think it's really nice to see her walking the streets of Lyme Regis once again."