There is an inspiring tale of Mary Anning born into poverty in 1799, under-educated in the way of the time and ignored because of the prejudice against women, who left her mark as a fossil collector and palaeontologist. Earlier this year the Royal Mail issued a set of four stamps celebrating her discoveries and in 2021, the Royal Mint issued commemorative coins in recognition of her as ‘one of Britain’s greatest fossil hunters’. The coins have images of Temnodontosaurus, Plesiosaurus and Dimorphodon, which she discovered.
She was born on 21 May 1799 in Lyme Regis, Dorset and her cabinet-maker father used to supplement his income by selling Jurassic marine fossils he found in the cliffs along the English Channel. She was the first to correctly identify an ichthyosaur skeleton when she was twelve years old. She was largely ignored by the scientific community of the day with a few exceptions who helped her work to become known; and she had little money throughout her life.
She was one of ten children named after a sister who had died in a fire just before her birth. Only three of the children survived to adulthood. On 19 August 1800, when she was 15 months old, an event occurred that became part of local lore. She was being held by a neighbour under an elm tree when lightning struck, killing all standing below it apart from the infant who was revived in a bath of hot water. Her family said she had been a sickly baby before the event, but afterwards seemed to blossom. The community would attribute her curiosity, intelligence and lively personality to the incident.
She did have a confident, determined and lucky chart with a Sun Jupiter in Gemini square Pluto, a passionately enthusiastic Venus Mars conjunct in Cancer; with Mercury in earthy Taurus conjunct the North Node in an inquiring trine to Uranus and opposition Neptune. Out of unlikely beginnings, she made a considerable mark.
When the lightning struck in 1800 a transiting accident-prone Mars square Saturn was tugging on her Mercury and more usefully tr Jupiter was exactly conjunct her Saturn in Cancer allowing her to escape alive.
She died before she was fifty of cancer but she had packed in remarkable achievements before then.
Her get-it-together 5th harmonic was well aspected and utterly determined. As was her leaving-a-legacy 17H and her global influencer 22H. Her ‘victim/healer’ 12H was also notable.
Agreed Helen and Caroline. It was quite common even until recent times for people to not marry and this was not even commented on. I have an aunt and an uncle who never married. Neither are gay.
Thanks Marjorie for this. Astounding how the astrology fits so perfectly. She certainly lived out her Taurus north node digging underneath cliffs/in landslides, for fossils, with mars/venus in ‘by the sea’ cancer.
Lucky too given the fate of her siblings who died in infancy. Strange how others in close physical proximity to her were not so lucky (lightening incident plus a close brush with death following a landslide which killed her pet dog which was standing by her feet). Natal jupiter squaring pluto perhaps? Such a fascinating read. Thank you. Mary was a remarkable woman.
It is heartening that she is still remember. My eldest Grandson has been taught all about her achievements at his junior school. Even a trip to a museum to look at what she identified. The film about her was appalling, as it depicted her as a lesbian, when there was not evidence for this. The Mars/Venus conjunction in cancer may have made her a person who was home with herself. Her Moon in Sagittarius would be more in tune with her Gemini Jupiter/Sun conjunction in Gemini – a curiosity for learning and relating her findings. I wish people would respect other people’s lives and not weave their own views into a dead person’s life. They deserve respect too.
Helen – agreed. It’s all too often the working assumption when a woman (from a bygone era) was childless and unmarried.