Statue for Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning approved
It's hoped a monument for Mary Anning can be unveiled in Lyme Regis on what would have been her 223rd birthday
A statue in tribute to Lyme Regis fossil hunter Mary Anning and her dog, Tray, has been approved by Dorset Council.
The planning application, from the charity Mary Anning Rocks, is for a small area at the eastern end of Long Entry.
The charity hopes now to have the statue up and ready for it to be unveiled on May 21st 2022, exactly 223 years after Mary Anning’s birth.
The campaign for the statue was led by Dorset schoolgirl Evie Swire who has set about fund-raising with her mother, Anya Pearson, after realising that the resort had no statue to mark Anning’s history.
The campaign has raised around £100,000. When Evie started campaigning in 2018 she was 10 years old.
Evie's mother, Anya Pearson told Greatest Hits Radio Dorset:
"I've always seen myself as a feminist but I've never really done anything where I've been stood up and been counted.
"Initially it was Evie's anger that instigated it when she was 10 years old and it was that anger that made me feel like we should do something about it."
The proposed statute won the support of more than 140 people who wrote to Dorset Council to support the application.
They included Dorchester artist Michal Taylor, a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, who said a statue is long overdue.
Local professional fossil collector Brandon Lennon also wrote to support the proposal along with New York resident, Adam Spielberg who said on behalf of himself and 10-year-old son Charlie:
“We travelled all the way from the US to Dorset to go fossil hunting on the same beach she made her incredible discoveries on. Mary Anning’s contributions to science are real and meaningful. For someone without formal education to make those discoveries in a time when most doors were closed to women in science makes her work even more remarkable and worthy of formal commemoration. This statue serves to remember, give credit where its (over)due, and inspire. We whole heartedly hope that it is allowed to go forward, and hope that someday soon on our next visit to the Jurassic coast that we will be able to pay our respects to Mary at this statue.”
The application papers from agents Terence O’Rourke Ltd, says despite coming from a poor background Anning’s finds changed the way scientists thought about the origins of our planet and how life evolved on it.
“Throughout Mary Anning’s lifetime, her achievements have largely gone unacknowledged with her name having been eradicated from the historic archives due to her being an uneducated, working-class woman and an outsider to the polite and scientific community,”
The proposed statue will be in bronze and will be placed overlooking Black Ven where many of her finds came from.
The site is on the junction of Long Entry and the footpath at Church Cliffs which connects to the end of the promenade, from Cobb Gate, along Gun Cliff.
The proposal seeks to place the life-size statue, by Denise Dutton, on cobbles to the east of the grass bank.