Editing Mary Anning (section)

=== 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>