200-year-old token found on Dorset beach probably belonged to famous fossil-finder Mary Anning, say researchers

This article originally appeared on Culture24.

Destitute female fossil-finder who made great discoveries during early 19th century remembered by token on beach

Mary Anning, the famous 19th century fossil collector who was revered across the world despite only leaving Dorset once during a life of groundbreaking discoveries in relative poverty, probably owned a childhood token from more than two centuries ago found on a Lyme Regis beach by researchers.

Michael Taylor, a visiting fellow at the University of Leicester’s School of Museum Studies, found the tiny metal disc on Church Cliff Beach, adorned with “MARY ANNING MDCCCX” (1810) on the obverse of the disc and “LYME REGIS AGE XI”.

Working with his colleague, Dr Richard Bull, Taylor has concluded that the coin was likely to have been made as a birthday present by Anning’s father, Richard, shortly before his death in 1810, with its low-quality production likely to rule out the possibility that it was created in commemoration following her passing in 1847. It has now gone on display at Lyme Regis Museum.

A self-educated, working-class explorer, Anning illuminated the world of science by contributing hugely to the early days of palaeontology, beginning by finding the bulk of a large ichthyosaur with the help of her brother in 1810.

Despite her standing as one of the greatest fossil finders in history, she remains somewhat obscure – perhaps, some commentators suggest, because of the struggle women faced for recognition in Britain at the time.

“Its importance is that it's such a very personal little thing and a real addition to the Museum's collection which doesn't have many items from Anning,” says Taylor.

“Richard Anning died in November 1810 and the bereaved family were on parish relief by 1811, raising the possibility that the token was used to indicate entitlement to out-relief such as handouts of bread.

“However, no such tokens are known in the operation of the poor law in Lyme, and none exists in the local collections of the museum.

“It does not tell us anything very new about Anning, but it does establish the find as a useful addition to the very few items of likely or certainly known Anning provenance in the museum.

“It's a pleasure to be able to do research of such immediate use to the museum.”

Mary Anning's story

• As a child, Mary and her father would go out fossil hunting regularly. They would bring back their fossils, clean and polish them, then sell them to tourists as curios.
  
  
• In 1810, when her father died, Mary and her family were destitute, burning furniture to keep warm and under constant threat of the workhouse. Selling fossils became the family's only source of income.
  
  
• In 1811 Mary's older brother, Joseph, discovered the skull of what we now know as an ichthyosaur. About a year later Mary found the rest of it and became quite a national sensation.
  
  
• Throughout her life she went on to make a great many more discoveries, including the first complete Plesiosaurus in 1824, followed by the first complete, and still very rare, Dimorphodon in 1828 – the first pterosaur to be discovered outside Germany.
  
  
• Her gender and lowly social class prevented her from joining the major scientific institutions of the time and many of the people who bought from her claimed her glory for themselves.

• Visit Lyme Regis Museum's lowdown on Mary Anning for more.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Three museums to find out about fossils in

Torquay Museum
The current exhibition, Britain's First Humans, features the oldest human fossils in Britain - the Boxgrove shin bone, together with the earliest evidence of modern humans in northwest Europe. Learn about the lives of the first pioneering humans to set foot in this country half a million years ago. Until December 12 2015.

Great North Museum Hancock, Newcastle
In Fossil Stories, become a palaeontologist and re-assemble a pre-historic creature using virtual technology. Sound, touch and animation bring alive a world that disappeared millions of years ago.

Westbury Manor Museum, Fareham
John Sibbick is an Isle of Wight based artist who has been drawing and illustrating dinosaurs since he was a boy. His work has featured in many dinosaur books and on television as well as dinosaur galleries in national and regional museums. See 28 of his works in Drawn to Dinosaurs, until January 9 2016.

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk/science-and-nature/dinosaurs-and-fossils/art541753-mary-anning-fossil-token-lyme-regis