| Statue of Mary Anning | |
|---|---|
 The statue of Mary Anning | |
 | |
| Artist | Denise Dutton |
| Year | 21 May 2022 |
| Type | Bronze |
| Location | Lyme Regis |
| 50°43′30.9″N2°55′49.4″W / 50.725250°N 2.930389°W | |
The Statue of Mary Anning is a bronze sculpture of the paleontologist Mary Anning in Lyme Regis.
In August 2018, a campaign called "Mary Anning Rocks" was formed by an 11-year-old school girl from Dorset, Evie Swire, supported by her mother Anya Pearson. [1]
The campaign, in promoting a monument to a 19th-century woman scientist, aimed to highlight the bias in the number of UK statues of men rather than women (more than 85% men). [2] Prior to the erection of Mary's statue in May 2022, there were three other statues to a woman in the Southwest of England; the 2019 statue of Nancy Astor in Plymouth, the 1888 Statue of Queen Victoria in Bristol, and the 1902 Statue of Queen Victoria in Weymouth. [2]
Plans for launching the crowdfunding part of the campaign in May 2020 were placed on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic in England, with the Mary Anning Rocks group selling t-shirts instead. [3] In November 2020 the delayed public crowdfunding campaign was launched to raise the money to commission a statue of Mary Anning for her home town of Lyme Regis. [4]
Patrons and supporters of the campaign include Professor Alice Roberts, Sir David Attenborough, and novelist Tracy Chevalier. [5]
In January 2021 the campaign had raised over £70,000, enough for the sculpture to be produced by sculptor Denise Dutton. [6] [7] She produced a maquette of the piece, which was publicly displayed at the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis on 22 May 2021, Anning's 222nd Birthday. [8]
Planning permission for the statue, at a site overlooking Black Ven (where Mary made many of her discoveries), was lodged in November 2021 [9] and granted by Dorset Council in January 2022. [10] The site is at the junction of Long Entry and Gun Cliff Walk in Lyme Regis.
The statue was publicly unveiled by Evie Swire and Alice Roberts on 21 May 2022, the 223rd anniversary of Anning's birth. [11] [12] The event was attended by hundreds of supporters including Tracy Chevalier, Hugh Torrens, Anjana Khatwa, Dean Lomax, and Tori Herridge. [13] The actress Lizzie Hopley performed as Mary Anning.
After the original public display of the maquette it has been on tour around the UK. From May 2022 it has toured museums and geological venues including the Oxford Museum of Natural History, Lapworth Museum of Geology, and Creswell Crags. As of December 2023 it is in the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and is due to continue to tour until at least October 2024. [14]
Dorset is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south-east, the English Channel to the south, and Devon to the west. The largest settlement is Bournemouth, and the county town is Dorchester.
Mary Anning was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist. She became known internationally for her discoveries in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset, Southwest England. Anning's findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.
Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, 25 miles (40 km) west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site and heritage coast. The harbour wall, known as The Cobb, appears in Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, the John Fowles novel The French Lieutenant's Woman and the 1981 film of that name, partly shot in the town.
The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about 96 miles (154 km), and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-December 2001.
Burton Bradstock is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, approximately 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) southeast of Bridport and 1⁄2 mile (0.8 km) inland from the English Channel at Chesil Beach. In the 2011 Census the parish had a population of 948. The village lies in the Bride Valley, close to the mouth of the small River Bride. It comprises 16th- and 17th-century thatched cottages, a parish church, two pubs, a primary school, shop, post office stores, beach café, hotel, garage, village hall, reading room a library. The parish has a National Coastwatch Institution Station, Lyme Bay Station.
Chideock is a village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated close to the English Channel between Bridport and Lyme Regis. Dorset County Council's 2013 estimate of the parish population is 550.
West Dorset is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Edward Morello, a Liberal Democrat.
Black Ven is a cliff in Dorset, England between the towns of Charmouth and Lyme Regis. The cliffs reach a height of 130 metres (430 ft). It is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. Nearby is an undercliff with an ammonite pavement. The area is popular with tourists due to a number of fossils being found in the area.
Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset, was the first pictorial representation of a scene of prehistoric life based on evidence from fossil reconstructions, a genre now known as paleoart.
Elizabeth Philpot (1779–1857) was an early 19th-century British fossil collector, amateur palaeontologist and artist who collected fossils from the cliffs around Lyme Regis in Dorset on the southern coast of England. She is best known today for her collaboration and friendship with the well known fossil hunter Mary Anning. She was well known in geological circles for her knowledge of fossil fish as well as her extensive collection of specimens and was consulted by leading geologists and palaeontologists of the time including William Buckland, and Louis Agassiz. When Mary Anning discovered that belemnite fossils contained ink sacs, it was Philpot who discovered that the fossilised ink could be revivified with water and used for illustrations, which became a common practice for local artists.
Dinosaurland Fossil Museum is a privately owned fossil museum in Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. The museum is located in a historic Grade I listed former congregational church building.
Lyme Regis Philpot Museum is situated in the town of Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England. It is a registered charity under English law. It is built on the site of the former home of the palaeontologist Mary Anning, which existed until 1826.
Anningasaura is an extinct genus of basal plesiosaur. It is known from a single type species, A. lymense, discovered in Early Jurassic rocks of Lyme Regis in the United Kingdom.
The 2015 West Dorset District Council election was held on Thursday 7 May 2015 to elect councillors to West Dorset District Council in England. It took place on the same day as the general election other district council elections in the United Kingdom. A series of boundary changes saw the number of councillors reduced from 48 to 44.
The Great Storm of 1824 was a hurricane force wind and storm surge that affected the south coast of England from 22 November 1824. The storm raged for two days.
The Lyme Regis Fossil Festival is an annual festival held at Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast of East Devon and Dorset. It exists to celebrate the unique geological heritage of Lyme Regis and the Jurassic Coast and to educate the public on advances in natural environment research, and especially palaeontology. It is organised by the Lyme Regis Development Trust with major support from the Natural History Museum in London and the Jurassic Coast team.
Ammonite is a 2020 romantic drama film written and directed by Francis Lee. Loosely inspired by the life of British palaeontologist Mary Anning, played by Kate Winslet, the film centres on a speculative romantic relationship between Anning and geologist Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse Ronan. Gemma Jones, James McArdle, Alec Secăreanu and Fiona Shaw also star.
The Jurassic Coaster is a bus service operated by the Weymouth branch of First Hampshire & Dorset, running around the Jurassic coastline of the county of Dorset. It features five routes, stretching from Axminster in the west to Poole in the east, with one of the routes in TripAdvisor's 2018 poll of most scenic bus routes coming in 12th place.
Lyme Regis Cemetery is the principal cemetery in the English town of Lyme Regis, Dorset. Estimates for the number of burials in the cemetery range from 3,570 to over 5,000, nearly half of which may today be unmarked. It was opened on 16 November 1856 as a replacement for the graveyard surrounding St Michael the Archangel – Lyme Regis' parish church – which had long suffered from erosion due to its close proximity to the sea.
