“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians 3:23–24
At Esther Press, we empower and equip women to courageously stand strong in the truth of who God made them to be. Let us do that for you today by sharing the story of Mary Anning.
Have you ever known someone who had an insatiable curiosity for life and the world around them? Some people see an ordinary rock. Others wonder what secrets it might hold.
In the early 1800s, a woman named Mary Anning made discoveries in rocks and dirt that still affect the world of science to this day.
Faithful Findings
Mary Anning was born on May 21, 1799, in Dorset, England, and she and her brother, Joseph, were the only surviving children out of ten. Her life nearly ended before it had hardly begun when she miraculously survived a lightning strike at fifteen months old. Her father, Richard, was a cabinetmaker, carpenter, and amateur fossil hunter. The family lived on what is now known as the Jurassic Coast, which got its nickname from the abundance of fossils found in the coast’s cliffs. Richard supplemented the family’s income by selling the fossils he found to tourists.
Mary and Joseph often joined their father on his fossil hunting expeditions. The family was poor, so they couldn’t afford to send Mary and Joseph to school, but their Congregational church believed in educating everyone, regardless of income level. In Sunday school, Mary was taught how to read and write. Sadly, her formal education stopped there.
In November 1810, when Mary was only eleven, her father died, leaving the family with no money and large debts. Mary, Joseph, and their mother continued searching for and selling fossils. A year later, Joseph found the skull of an ichthyosaur, an extinct marine reptile, but a few months later Mary found the rest of the skeleton. It was the first of many discoveries she made that would advance the new science of paleontology.
Courageous Perseverance
A few years after Mary’s father died, Joseph began an apprenticeship that took him away from the fossil-finding business. But Mary continued with it, and over time she made several more large discoveries, including the first flying reptile fossil found outside Germany. Although her discoveries helped to establish the science of paleontology, Mary was not rightly recognized for her contributions in her lifetime. Because the scientific community was run by well-educated, upper-class men, credit for Mary’s discoveries was not given to her in most cases though several species known only by their fossils were named after her. The Lord, however, provided for her through the help of caring friends.
Even though Mary was poor till the end of her life, the Lord’s hand was on her, from the time she survived the lightning strike to a narrow escape from a landslide. Her most-read book was the Bible, and she was a loyal church attender all her life, donating money to the local Congregational and Anglican churches.
Sadly, in 1845 Mary was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although women weren’t allowed to join the Geological Society of London, when they heard of her illness, they created a fund to help pay for her treatment. Mary died in March of 1847, at forty-seven years old. Her grave is in the churchyard at the Lyme Regis Parish Church, where three years later the Geological Society donated a stained glass window in her honor.
Mary Anning faced hardships that might have discouraged even the most determined person: losing her father as a child, struggling with poverty, and working in a scientific community that rarely gave women the credit they deserved. Although we cannot know precisely how Mary’s faith sustained her through her difficulties, we know she remained devoted to Scripture and her church throughout her life. Her courage and faith drove her to persevere, and today her memory lives as an example to countless people around the world.
