Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, and the Great Storm of 1824

Abstract

• During the Great Storm of 1824, the house and fossil shop of Mary Anning (1799-1847), fossil collector of Lyme Regis, in Cockmoil Square, was supposedly flooded. The popular but physically unlikely story is probably based on misreading Anning's report of flooding in her brother Joseph's premises, and copying a tale set in a house on the Buddle Bridge over the River Lim on before 1811 in a children's book. The heroine of Lyme Regis by Harriot Forde included this uncorroborated, improbable and, to the Great Storm of 1824, irrelevant 'tradition'. It is suggested that following a close reading of primary sources it is probable that this was a local corruption of the story of the flooding of Joseph Anning's house/shop confused by later fossil-dealers who appropriated the name of Anning's 'Fossil Depot.' The Great Storm story therefore exemplifies the inaccuracy characteristic of much writing about Anning, and the care that must be taken in usig secondary sources about her life.