Editing Mary Anning (section)

== Life and career ==

=== Early childhood ===
[[File:Lyme Regis - Dorset dot.png|thumb|upright=.7|alt=Map of the UK|[[Lyme Regis]], Dorset]]
Mary Anning<ref>Dennis Dean writes that Anning pronounced her name "Annin" (see {{Harvnb|Dean|1999|p=58}}), and when she wrote it for [[Carl Gustav Carus]], a aide to King [[Frederick Augustus II of Saxony]], she wrote "Annin's" (see {{Harvnb|Carus|1846|p=197}}).</ref> was born in [[Lyme Regis]] in [[Dorset]], England, on 21 May 1799.<ref name=eb>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Mary Anning |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Anning |access-date=7 March 2018}}</ref> Her father, Richard Anning (''c''. 1766–1810), was a [[cabinetmaker]] and carpenter who supplemented his income by mining the coastal cliff-side fossil beds near the town, and selling his finds to tourists; her mother was Mary Moore (''c''. 1764–1842) known as Molly.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=23 September 2004 |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/568 |pages=ref:odnb/568 |editor-last=Matthew |editor-first=H. C. G. |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/568 |access-date=30 November 2019 |editor2-last=Harrison |editor2-first=B.}}</ref> Anning's parents married on 8 August 1793 in [[Blandford Forum]] and moved to Lyme, living in a house built on the town's bridge. They attended the [[English Dissenters|Dissenter]] chapel on Coombe Street, whose worshippers initially called themselves independents and later became known as [[Congregationalism|Congregationalists]]. [[Shelley Emling]] writes that the family lived so near to the sea that the same storms that swept along the cliffs to reveal the fossils sometimes flooded the Annings' home, on one occasion forcing them to crawl out of an upstairs bedroom window to avoid drowning.<ref name=Emling11 />

[[File:Mary Anning Plaque.JPG|thumb|upright=.7|alt=Oval blue plaque marking site of Anning's house|[[Blue plaque]] where Mary Anning was born and had her first fossil shop, now the [[Lyme Regis Museum]]]] [[File:Mary Anning's house and shop in Lyme Regis, drawn in 1842.JPG|thumb|1842 sketch of Anning's house|alt=Sketch of house with two large front windows on either side of a front door and next to the steps leading up from the street to the door are two partially open cellar doors]]

Molly and Richard had ten children.<ref name="Goodhue10">{{Harvnb|Goodhue|2002|p=10}}</ref> The first child, also Mary, was born in 1794. She was followed by another daughter, who died almost at once; Joseph in 1796; and another son in 1798, who died in infancy. In December that year, the oldest child, (the first Mary) then four years old, died after her clothes caught fire, possibly while adding wood shavings to the fire.<ref name=Emling11 /> The incident was reported in the ''[[Bath Chronicle]]'' on 27 December 1798: "A child, four years of age of Mr. R. Anning, a cabinetmaker of Lyme, was left by the mother for about five minutes ... in a room where there were some shavings ... The girl's clothes caught fire and she was so dreadfully burnt as to cause her death."<ref name=Cadbury5 />

When Anning was born five months later, she was thus named Mary after her dead sister. More children were born after her, but none of them survived more than a year or two. Only the second Mary Anning and her brother Joseph, who was three years older than her, survived to adulthood.<ref name="Emling11">{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=11–14}}</ref> The high [[child mortality]] rate for the Anning family was not unusual. Almost half the children born in the UK in the 19th century died before the age of five, and in the crowded living conditions of early 19th-century Lyme Regis, infant deaths from diseases like [[smallpox]] and [[measles]] were common.<ref name="Goodhue10" />

On 19 August 1800, when Anning was 15 months old, an event occurred that became part of local lore. She was being held by a neighbour, Elizabeth Haskings, who was standing with two other women under an elm tree watching an equestrian show being put on by a travelling company of horsemen when lightning struck the tree—killing all three women below.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hawkes |first1=Jaquetta |title=A Land |date=1953 |publisher=Readers United |location=London |pages=56–57}}</ref> Onlookers rushed the infant home, where she was revived in a bath of hot water.<ref name="Cadbury5">{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|pp=5–6}}</ref> A local doctor declared her survival miraculous. Anning's family said she had been a sickly baby before the event, but afterwards she seemed to blossom. For years afterwards, members of her community would attribute the child's curiosity, intelligence and lively personality to the incident.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=14–16}}</ref>

Anning's education was extremely limited, but she was able to attend a Congregationalist [[Sunday school]], where she learned to read and write. Congregationalist doctrine, unlike that of the [[Church of England]] at the time, emphasised the importance of education for the poor. Her prized possession was a bound volume of the ''Dissenters' Theological Magazine and Review'', in which the family's pastor, the Reverend James Wheaton, had published two essays, one insisting that God had created the world in six days, the other urging dissenters to study the new science of geology.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=26}}</ref>

=== Fossils as a family business ===
{{further|Jurassic Coast|List of fossil sites}}
[[File:Blue lias cliffs at Lyme Regis.jpg|thumb|alt=Cliff wall with layers of rock next to a rocky beach|[[Blue Lias]] cliffs, Lyme Regis]]
[[File:Golden Cap from Charmouth beach.jpg|thumb|alt=Cliffs in the distance, seashore in the foreground|The Jurassic coast at [[Charmouth]], Dorset, where the Annings made some of their finds. The hill in the background is [[Golden Cap]].]]

By the late 18th century, [[Lyme Regis]] had become a popular seaside resort, especially after 1792 when the outbreak of the [[French Revolutionary Wars]] made travel to the European mainland dangerous for the English gentry, and increasing numbers of wealthy and middle-class tourists were arriving there.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|p=4}}</ref> Even before Anning's time, locals supplemented their income by selling what were called "curios" to visitors. These were fossils with colourful local names such as "snake-stones" ([[Ammonoidea|ammonites]]), "devil's fingers" ([[belemnite]]s), and "verteberries" ([[vertebra]]e), to which were sometimes attributed medicinal and mystical properties.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|pp=6–8}}</ref> Fossil collecting was in vogue in the late 18th and early 19th century, at first as a pastime, but gradually transforming into a science as the importance of fossils to geology and biology was understood. The source of most of these fossils were the coastal cliffs around Lyme Regis, part of a geological formation known as the [[Blue Lias]]. This consists of alternating layers of [[limestone]] and [[shale]], laid down as sediment on a shallow seabed early in the Jurassic period (about 210–195&nbsp;million years ago). It is one of the richest fossil locations in Britain.<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=11–12}}</ref> The cliffs could be dangerously unstable, however, especially in winter when rain weakened them, causing landslides. It was precisely during the winter months that collectors were drawn to the cliffs because the landslides often exposed new fossils.<ref name="McGowan14-21" />

Their father, Richard, often took Anning and her brother Joseph on fossil-hunting expeditions to supplement the family's income. They offered their discoveries for sale to tourists on a table outside their home. This was a difficult time for England's poor; the [[French Revolutionary Wars]], and the [[Napoleonic Wars]] that followed, caused food shortages. The price of wheat almost tripled between 1792 and 1812, but wages for the working class remained almost unchanged. In Dorset, the rising price of bread caused political unrest, even riots. At one point, Richard Anning was involved in organising a protest against food shortages.<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|pp=4–5}}</ref>

In addition, the family's status as religious dissenters—not followers of the [[Church of England]]—attracted discrimination. In the earlier nineteenth century, those who refused to subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England were still not allowed to study at [[Oxford]] or [[Cambridge]] or to take certain positions in the army, and were excluded by law from several professions.<ref name=Emling11 /> Anning's father had been suffering from [[tuberculosis]] and injuries he suffered from a fall off a cliff, contributing to his death in November 1810 (aged 44). He left the family with debts and no savings, forcing them to apply for [[poor relief]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|p=9}}</ref>

The family continued collecting and selling fossils together and set up a table of curiosities near the coach stop at a local inn. Although the stories about Anning tend to focus on her successes, Dennis Dean writes that her mother and brother were astute collectors too, and Anning's parents had sold fossils before the father's death.<ref name="Dean58">{{Harvnb|Dean|1999|pp=58ff}}</ref>
[[File:AnningIchthyosaurSkull.jpg|thumb|alt=drawing of side view of a long thin skull with needle like teeth and a large eye socket|Drawing from an 1814 paper<ref name="Home1814">{{Harvnb|Home|1814}}</ref> by [[Sir Everard Home, 1st Baronet|Everard Home]] showing the skull of ''[[Temnodontosaurus platyodon]]'' (previously ''[[Ichthyosaurus platyodon]]'') (NHMUK PV R 1158) found by Joseph Anning in 1811]]
Their first well-known find was in 1811 when Mary Anning was 12; her brother Joseph dug up a 4-foot [[ichthyosaur]] skull, and a few months later Anning herself found the rest of the skeleton. Henry Hoste Henley of [[Sandringham House]] in [[Sandringham, Norfolk]], who was lord of the manor of Colway, near Lyme Regis, paid the family about £23 for it,<ref name="Sharpe15">{{Harvnb|Sharpe|McCartney|1998|p=15}}</ref> and in turn he sold it to [[William Bullock (collector)|William Bullock]], a well-known collector, who displayed it in [[London]]. There it generated interest, as public awareness of the age of the Earth and the variety of prehistoric creatures was growing. It was later sold for £45 and five shillings at auction in May 1819 as a "Crocodile in a Fossil State" to [[Charles Konig]], of the [[British Museum]], who had already suggested the name ''Ichthyosaurus'' for it.<ref name="Howe12">{{Harvnb|Howe|Sharpe|Torrens|1981|p=12}}</ref>

Anning's mother Molly initially ran the fossil business after her husband Richard's death, but it is unclear how much actual fossil collecting Molly did herself. As late as 1821, Molly wrote to the British Museum to request payment for a specimen. Her son Joseph's time was increasingly taken up by his apprenticeship to an [[upholsterer]], but he remained active in the fossil business until at least 1825. By that time, Mary Anning had assumed the leading role in the family specimen business.<ref name="Torrens1995" />

=== Birch auction ===
The family's keenest customer was Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas James Birch, later Bosvile, a wealthy collector from [[Lincolnshire]], who bought several specimens from them. In 1820 Birch became disturbed by the family's poverty. Having made no major discoveries for a year, they were at the point of having to sell their furniture to pay the rent. So he decided to auction on their behalf the fossils he had purchased from them. He wrote to the palaeontologist [[Gideon Mantell]] on 5 March that year to say that the sale was "for the benefit of the poor woman and her son and daughter at Lyme, who have in truth found almost ''all'' the fine things which have been submitted to scientific investigation ... I may never again possess what I am about to part with, yet in doing it I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that the money will be well applied." The auction was held at Bullocks in London on 15 May 1820, and raised £400 (the equivalent of £{{Inflation|UK|400|1820|r=-3|fmt=c}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK}} How much of that was given to the Annings is not known, but it seems to have placed the family on a steadier financial footing, and with buyers arriving from Paris and Vienna, the three-day event raised the family's profile within the geological community.<ref name=Dean58 />

=== Fossil shop and growing expertise in a risky occupation ===
Anning continued to support herself selling fossils. Her primary stock in trade consisted of invertebrate fossils such as [[ammonite]] and [[belemnoidea|belemnite]] shells, which were common in the area and sold for a few shillings. [[Vertebrate]] fossils, such as ichthyosaur skeletons, sold for more, but were much rarer.<ref name="McGowan14-21">{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=14–21}}</ref> Collecting them was dangerous winter work. In 1823, an article in ''The Bristol Mirror'' said of her:

{{Quotation|This persevering female has for years gone daily in search of fossil remains of importance at every tide, for many miles under the hanging cliffs at Lyme, whose fallen masses are her immediate object, as they alone contain these valuable relics of a former world, which must be snatched at the moment of their fall, at the continual risk of being crushed by the half suspended fragments they leave behind, or be left to be destroyed by the returning tide:{{spaced ndash}}to her exertions we owe nearly all the fine specimens of Ichthyosauri of the great collections&nbsp;...<ref name="Torrens1995" />}}

The risks of Anning's profession were illustrated when in October 1833 she barely avoided being killed by a landslide that buried her black-and-white terrier, Tray, her constant companion when she went collecting.<ref name="McGowan14-21" /> Anning wrote to a friend, [[Charlotte Murchison]], in November of that year: "Perhaps you will laugh when I say that the death of my old faithful dog has quite upset me, the cliff that fell upon him and killed him in a moment before my eyes, and close to my feet ... it was but a moment between me and the same fate."<ref>{{Harvnb|Goodhue|2004|p=84}}</ref>

As Anning continued to make important finds, her reputation grew. On 10&nbsp;December 1823, she found the first complete ''[[Plesiosaurus]]'', and in 1828 the first British example of the flying reptiles known as [[pterosaur]]s, called a flying dragon when it was displayed at the British Museum, followed by a ''[[Squaloraja]]'' fish skeleton in 1829.<ref name="TorrensODNB" /> Despite her limited education, she read as much of the scientific literature as she could obtain, and often laboriously hand-copied papers borrowed from others. Palaeontologist [[Christopher McGowan]] examined a copy Anning made of an 1824 paper by [[William Conybeare (geologist)|William Conybeare]] on marine reptile fossils and noted that the copy included several pages of her detailed technical illustrations that he was hard-pressed to tell apart from the original.<ref name="McGowan14-21" /> She also dissected modern animals including both fish and [[cuttlefish]] to gain a better understanding of the anatomy of some of the fossils with which she was working. Lady Harriet Silvester, the widow of the former [[Recorder of London|Recorder of the City of London]], visited Lyme in 1824 and described Anning in her diary:
[[File:Mary Anning Plesiosaurus.jpg|thumb|right|upright=.8|alt=Drawing of partially complete skeleton of creature with long thin neck, small skull, and paddles |Letter and drawing from Mary Anning announcing the discovery of a fossil animal now known as ''[[Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus]]'' (specimen NHMUK OR 22656), 26&nbsp;December 1823]]

{{Quotation|The extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that the moment she finds any bones she knows to what tribe they belong. She fixes the bones on a frame with cement and then makes drawings and has them engraved... It is certainly a wonderful instance of divine favour—that this poor, ignorant girl should be so blessed, for by reading and application she has arrived to that degree of knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and talking with professors and other clever men on the subject, and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the science than anyone else in this kingdom.<ref name="UCMP">{{cite web |title=Mary Anning |url=http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/anning.html |publisher=University of California Museum of Paleontology |access-date=31 December 2009}}</ref>}}

In 1826, aged 27, Anning managed to save enough money to purchase a house with a glass store-front window for her shop, ''Anning's Fossil Depot''. The business had become important enough that the move was covered in the local paper, which noted that the shop had a fine ichthyosaur skeleton on display. Many geologists and fossil collectors from Europe and America visited her at Lyme, including the geologist [[George William Featherstonhaugh]], who called Anning a "very clever funny Creature."<ref>{{Harvnb|Berkeley|Berkeley|1988|p=66}}</ref> He purchased fossils from Anning for the newly opened [[New York Academy of Sciences|New York Lyceum of Natural History]] in 1827. King [[Frederick Augustus II of Saxony]] visited her shop in 1844 and purchased an ichthyosaur skeleton for his extensive natural history collection.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=98–99, 190–191}}</ref> The king's physician and aide, [[Carl Gustav Carus]], wrote in his journal:

{{Quotation|We had alighted from the carriage and were proceeding on foot, when we fell in with a shop in which the most remarkable petrifications and fossil remains—the head of an ''Ichthyosaurus''—beautiful ammonites, etc. were exhibited in the window. We entered and found the small shop and adjoining chamber completely filled with fossil productions of the coast ... I found in the shop a large slab of blackish clay, in which a perfect ''Ichthyosaurus'' of at least six feet, was embedded. This specimen would have been a great acquisition for many of the cabinets of natural history on the Continent, and I consider the price demanded, £15 sterling, as very moderate.<ref name=Carus />}}

Carus asked Anning to write her name and address in his pocketbook for future reference—she wrote it as "Mary Annins"—and when she handed it back to him she told him: "I am well known throughout the whole of Europe".<ref name="Carus">{{multiref|{{Harvnb|Carus|1846|p=197}}|also see {{Harvnb|Gordon|1894|p=115}}}}</ref> As time passed, Anning's confidence in her knowledge grew, and in 1839 she wrote to the ''[[Journal of Natural History|Magazine of Natural History]]'' to question the claim made in an article, that a recently discovered fossil of the prehistoric shark ''[[Hybodus]]'' represented a new genus, as an error since she had discovered the existence of fossil sharks with both straight and hooked teeth many years ago.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=172}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Anning |first=Mary |title=Extract of a letter from Miss Anning |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=epY5AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA605 |journal=The Magazine of Natural History |volume=3 |page=605 |year=1839 |id={{BHL page|2270489}} |series=N.S. |issue=36}}</ref> The extract from the letter that the magazine printed was the only writing of Anning's published in the scientific literature during her lifetime. Some personal letters written by Anning, such as her correspondence with [[Frances Augusta Bell]], were published while she was alive, however.<ref name="Torrens1995">{{Harvnb|Torrens|1995}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Grant|1825|pp=131–133, 172–173}}</ref>

=== Interactions with the scientific community ===
As a woman, Anning was treated as an outsider to the scientific community. At the time in Britain, women were not allowed to vote, hold public office, or attend university. The newly formed, but increasingly influential [[Geological Society of London]] did not allow women to become members, or even to attend meetings as guests.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=40}}</ref> The only occupations generally open to working-class women were farm labour, domestic service, and work in the newly opened factories.<ref name="McGowan14-21" />

Although Anning knew more about fossils and geology than many of the wealthy fossilists to whom she sold, it was always the gentlemen geologists who published the scientific descriptions of the specimens she found, often neglecting to mention Anning's name. She became resentful of this.<ref name="McGowan14-21" /> Anna Pinney, a young woman who sometimes accompanied Anning while she collected, wrote: "She says the world has used her ill ... these men of learning have sucked her brains, and made a great deal of publishing works, of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none of the advantages."<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=203–204}}</ref> Anning herself wrote in a letter: "The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone".<ref name=Dickens /> [[Hugh Torrens]] writes that these slights to Anning were part of a larger pattern of ignoring the contributions of working-class people in early 19th-century scientific literature. Often a fossil would be found by a quarryman, construction worker, or road worker who would sell it to a wealthy collector, and it was the latter who was credited if the find was of scientific interest.<ref name="Torrens1995" />

Along with purchasing specimens, many geologists visited Anning to collect fossils or discuss anatomy and classification. [[Henry De la Beche]] and Anning became friends as teenagers following his move to Lyme, and he, Anning, and sometimes her brother Joseph, went fossil-hunting together. De la Beche and Anning kept in touch as he became one of Britain's leading geologists.<ref name="Emling35">{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=35}}</ref> [[William Buckland]], who lectured on geology at the University of Oxford, often visited Lyme on his Christmas vacations and was frequently seen hunting for fossils with Anning.<ref>{{multiref|{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=26–27}}|{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=53–56}}}}</ref> It was to him Anning made what would prove to be the scientifically important suggestion (in a letter auctioned for over £100,000 in 2020 <ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Help raise £18000 to Purchase a letter written by Mary Anning to William Buckland in 1829. |url=https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mary-anning-letter-1829 |access-date=15 October 2020 |website=JustGiving |author=Reedman, C. |date=28 August 2020 |language=en-GB}}</ref>) that the strange conical objects known as bezoar stones were really the fossilised faeces of ichthyosaurs or plesiosaurs. Buckland would name the objects [[coprolites]].<ref name="Rudwick154" /> In 1839 Buckland, Conybeare, and [[Richard Owen]] visited Lyme together so that Anning could lead them all on a fossil-collecting excursion.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=173–176}}</ref>

Anning also assisted [[Thomas Hawkins (geologist)|Thomas Hawkins]] with his efforts to collect ichthyosaur fossils at Lyme in the 1830s. She was aware of his penchant to "enhance" the fossils he collected. Anning wrote: "he is such an enthusiast that he makes things as he imagines they ought to be; and not as they are really found...".<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|p=131}}</ref> A few years later there was a public scandal when it was discovered that Hawkins had inserted fake bones to make some ichthyosaur skeletons seem more complete, and later sold them to the government for the British Museum's collection without the appraisers knowing about the additions.<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=133–148}}</ref>

The Swiss palaeontologist [[Louis Agassiz]] visited Lyme Regis in 1834 and worked with Anning to obtain and study fish fossils found in the region. He was so impressed by Anning and her friend [[Elizabeth Philpot]] that he wrote in his journal: "Miss Philpot and Mary Anning have been able to show me with utter certainty which are the ichthyodorulite's dorsal fins of sharks that correspond to different types." He thanked both of them for their help in his book, ''Studies of Fossil Fish''.<ref name="Emling169">{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=169–170}}</ref>

[[File:Mary Anning's notebook page.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Page from Mary Anning's notebook (facsimile), on display in [[Dorset County Museum]], March 2018.]]

Another leading British geologist, [[Roderick Murchison]], did some of his first fieldwork in southwest England, including Lyme, accompanied by his wife, [[Charlotte Murchison|Charlotte]]. Murchison wrote that they decided Charlotte should stay behind in Lyme for a few weeks to "become a good practical fossilist, by working with the celebrated Mary Anning of that place...". Charlotte and Anning became lifelong friends and correspondents. Charlotte, who travelled widely and met many prominent geologists through her work with her husband, helped Anning build her network of customers throughout Europe, and she stayed with the Murchisons when she visited London in 1829. Anning's correspondents included [[Charles Lyell]], who wrote to ask her opinion on how the sea was affecting the coastal cliffs around Lyme, as well as [[Adam Sedgwick]]—one of her earliest customers—who taught geology at the University of Cambridge and who numbered [[Charles Darwin]] among his students. [[Gideon Mantell]], discoverer of the dinosaur [[Iguanodon]], also visited Anning at her shop.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=99–101, 124–125, 171}}</ref>

=== Financial difficulties and change in church affiliation ===
[[File:A prehistoric lake teeming with saurians eating each other o Wellcome V0023194.jpg|thumb|alt=Black and white print of prehistoric animals and plants living in the sea and on the nearby shore; foreground figures include pterosaurs fighting in the air above the sea and an ichthyosaur biting into the long neck of a plesiosaur.|The [[lithograph]] print of ''[[Duria Antiquior]]'', made by Scharf based on [[Henry De la Beche]]'s original [[watercolour]]]]
By 1830, because of difficult economic conditions in Britain that reduced the demand for fossils, coupled with long gaps between major finds, Anning was having financial problems again. Her friend, the geologist Henry De la Beche, assisted her by commissioning [[George Johann Scharf|Georg Scharf]] to make a lithographic print based on De la Beche's watercolour painting, ''[[Duria Antiquior]]'', portraying life in prehistoric Dorset that was based largely on fossils Anning had found. De la Beche sold copies of the print to his fellow geologists and other wealthy friends and donated the proceeds to Anning. It became the first such scene from what later became known as [[deep time]] to be widely circulated.<ref>{{Harvnb|Rudwick|1992|pp=42–47}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=139–145}}</ref> In December 1830, Anning finally made another major find, a skeleton of a new type of plesiosaur, which sold for £200.<ref name="Emling143">{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|p=143}}</ref>

It was around this time that Anning switched from attending the local Congregational church, where she had been baptised and in which she and her family had always been active members, to the Anglican church. The change was prompted in part by a decline in Congregational attendance that began in 1828 when its popular pastor, John Gleed, a fellow fossil collector, left for the United States to campaign against slavery. He was replaced by the less likeable Ebenezer Smith. The greater social respectability of the established church, in which some of Anning's gentleman geologist customers such as Buckland, Conybeare, and Sedgwick were ordained clergy, was also a factor. Anning, who was [[List of Christian thinkers in science|devoutly religious]], actively supported her new church as she had her old.<ref name="Emling143" />

Anning suffered another serious financial setback in 1835 when she lost most of her life savings, about £300, in a bad investment. Sources differ somewhat on what exactly went wrong. [[Deborah Cadbury]] says that she invested with a conman who swindled her and disappeared with the money,<ref>{{Harvnb|Cadbury|2000|p=231}}</ref> but Shelley Emling writes that it is not clear whether the man ran off with the money or whether he died suddenly leaving Anning with no way to recover the investment. Concerned about Anning's financial situation, her old friend William Buckland persuaded the [[British Science Association|British Association for the Advancement of Science]] and the British government to award her an [[Life annuity|annuity]], known as a [[civil list pension]], in return for her many contributions to the science of geology. The £25 annual pension gave Anning some financial security.<ref>{{Harvnb|Emling|2009|pp=171–172}}</ref>

=== Illness and death ===
[[File:MaryAnningGravestone.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=Photo of upright gravestone|Gravestone of Anning and her brother Joseph in St Michael's churchyard]]
Anning died from [[breast cancer]] at the age of 47 on 9 March 1847.<ref name=eb /> Her fossil work had tailed off during the last few years of her life because of her illness, and as some townspeople misinterpreted the effects of the increasing doses of [[laudanum]] she was taking for the pain, there had been gossip in Lyme that she had a drinking problem.<ref>{{Harvnb|Brice|2001}}</ref> The regard in which Anning was held by the geological community was shown in 1846 when, upon learning of her cancer diagnosis, the Geological Society raised money from its members to help with her expenses and the council of the newly created [[Dorset County Museum]] made Anning an honorary member.<ref name="Torrens1995" /> She was buried on 15 March in the churchyard of [[Lyme Regis#Religion|St Michael's]], the local parish church.<ref name="TorrensODNB">{{Harvnb|Torrens|2008}}</ref> Members of the Geological Society contributed to a stained-glass window in Anning's memory, unveiled in 1850. It depicts the six corporal ''[[works of Mercy|acts of mercy]]''—feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting prisoners and the sick, and the inscription reads: "This window is sacred to the memory of Mary Anning of this parish, who died 9 March AD 1847 and is erected by the vicar and some members of the Geological Society of London in commemoration of her usefulness in furthering the science of geology, as also of her benevolence of heart and integrity of life."<ref>{{Harvnb|McGowan|2001|pp=200–201}}</ref>

[[File:MaryAnningWindow.jpg|thumb|alt=Photo of colourful stained class window showing human figures|Mary Anning's Window, St Michael's Church]]
After Anning's death, Henry De la Beche, president of the Geological Society, wrote a eulogy that he read to a meeting of the society and published in its quarterly transactions, the first such eulogy given for a woman. These were honours normally only accorded to fellows of the society, which did not admit women until 1904. The eulogy began:

<blockquote>I cannot close this notice of our losses by death without adverting to that of one, who though not placed among even the easier classes of society, but one who had to earn her daily bread by her labour, yet contributed by her talents and untiring researches in no small degree to our knowledge of the great [[Eurapsyda|Enalio-Saurians]], and other forms of organic life entombed in the vicinity of Lyme Regis ...<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YR0RAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR24 |title=Anniversary Address of the President |journal=The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London |volume=4 |year=1848 |page=xxv |author=Anon}}</ref></blockquote>

An anonymous article about Anning's life was published in February 1865 in [[Charles Dickens]]'s literary magazine ''[[All the Year Round]]''. The profile, "Mary Anning, The Fossil Finder," was long attributed to Dickens himself but, in 2014, historians of palaeontology Michael A. Taylor and Hugh Torrens identified [[Henry Stuart Fagan]] as the author, noting that Fagan's work was "neither original nor reliable" and "introduced errors into the Anning literature which are still problematic." Specifically, they noted that Fagan had largely and inaccurately plagiarised his article from an earlier account of Anning's life and work by Dorset native [[Henry Rowland Brown]], from the second edition of Brown's 1859 guidebook, ''The Beauties of Lyme Regis.''<ref>Taylor, M. A. and Torrens, H. S. (2014). [https://web.archive.org/web/20200529051228/http://repository.nms.ac.uk/1258/1/1258_An_anonymous_account_of_Mary_Anning.pdf An Anonymous Account of Mary Anning (1799–1847), Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis, Dorset, England, Published in All The Year Round in 1865, and its Attribution to Henry Stuart Fagan (1827–1890), Schoolmaster, Parson, and Author]. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History & Archaeological Society, 135, 71–85.</ref> The article emphasised the difficulties Anning had overcome, especially the scepticism of her fellow townspeople. Fagan ended the article with: "The carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and has deserved to win it."<ref name="Dickens">{{Harvnb|Dickens|1865|pp=60–63}}</ref>