My name is Mary Anning, and just as fossils are forgotten for many years, so too was I. As a child I walked the seafront with my father and brother to find what we then called curiosities.

Mary Anning was a pioneering palaeontologist and fossil collector. Her lifetime was a constellation of firsts. Mary Anning was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, in the southwest English county of Dorset.

Mary Anning was a pioneering palaeontologist and fossil collector. Her lifetime was a constellation of firsts. Mary Anning was born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, in the southwest English county of Dorset.