Darwin and Mary Anning Biography

Naturalist Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809. He was born in the tiny merchant town of Shrewsbury, England. Darwin was a child of wealth and privilege who loved to explore nature. Darwin came from a long line of scientists. He was the second youngest of six children. At age 18, Charles Darwin became a student at Christ’s College in Cambridge. His father wanted him to become a doctor, but the site of blood made him queasy.
Darwin is best known for his theory of “Survival of the Fittest,” or natural selection. This has branched off into many other theories, including Social Darwinism. He is also known for his theory of evolution. Many other naturalists believed that all species came into being with the start of the world. Darwin, though, noticed similarities with species around the world, and came to a conclusion that they all derived from common ancestors.
Charles Darwin was known to win the Queen's Medal in 1853. It is awarded to the two most important contributions to the advancement of Natural Knowledge. He also received the Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology in 1859. After a long life, devoted to his work, Charles Darwin died in London, on April 19, 1882, and was buried at Westminster Abbey. His work is still used and referred to again and again to this day.
Mary Anning was born in the little seaside town of Lyme Regis on the South coast of England. In 1799, she was born to Mary and Richard and Mary Anning. She had ten siblings, but only her and her brother Joseph lived to see maturity. The simple serenity of this place of birth gave her a keen eye, allowing her to see things others couldn’t. This skill would later help her acquire much fame in the scientific community.
Mary began her career early. When she only ten, her father, Richard Anning, died of the combined effects of tuberculosis and a serious fall. He did other things for a living, but in his free time, he would collect and sell fossils to tourists. It was he who taught Mary how to find and clean fossils. But this skill would come into play only a few years later, when at age twelve, Mary uncovered the fossil of a full ichthyosaur. She is now credited for the first find of this, although many paleontologists don’t know this. From a scientific standpoint, however, perhaps her most incredible find was a intact plesiosaur; also known as Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus, which she located in 1824. This became known as the "grand fossil skeleton of Lyme-Regis,", and was an international sensation.
Although not formally given any awards, Anning was credited for the discovery of the ichthyosaur, and the findings of many other incredible fossils. She was also granted a honorary membership in the Geological Society, in recognition to all her amazing finds. She was given a stain glass window in her memory in the Parish Church at Lyme. She was also praised by English paleontologist Edward Pigeon in 1830. He gave her high accolades in what was then a man's world, praising; the arduous and zealous exertions of this female fossilist in her laborious and sometimes dangerous pursuit. It is to her almost exclusively that our scientific countrymen, whose names have been already mentioned, owe the materials on which their labours and their fame are grounded, nor, we are persuaded, will they be unwilling to admit that they are indebted for some portion of their merited reputation to the labours of Mary Anning.
On March 9, 1847 she died of breast cancer, as did her mother only five years earlier. Her body was laid to rest in the graveyard of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Lyme Regis. Her brother, who became church warden in 1846, was buried beside her in 1849. Raised Congregationalists, they ended up Anglicans.