Dorset Museum & Art Gallery is launching a fundraising campaign to enhance and expand its forthcoming Mary Anning – Fossil Hunter exhibition, celebrating the life and legacy of the pioneering palaeontologist 180 years after her death.
The exhibition – guest curated by bestselling author Tracy Chevalier – is coming to Dorset Museum & Art Gallery in January 2027, and the museum is seeking support from individuals, businesses, and organisations to make the most of this significant opportunity and create an even richer experience for visitors.
Funds raised will support:
- Enhanced programming: Specialist talks from leading palaeontologists and historians, exploring Mary’s discoveries and their impact on scientific thinking.
- Family activities and workshops: Interactive sessions allowing visitors of all ages to engage with fossil hunting and palaeontology.
- School visits: Funding to make the exhibition accessible to school groups, bringing Mary’s story to young people across Dorset and beyond.
- Object conservation: Professional conservation work to preserve and present Mary’s discoveries and related artefacts at their best.
“The Mary Anning exhibition is a significant moment for Dorset Museum & Art Gallery,” said Claire Dixon, Executive Director at the Museum. “Mary’s story – of a working-class woman from Lyme Regis whose discoveries transformed scientific understanding – is genuinely inspiring. With support from our community, we can create programming and experiences that do justice to her remarkable legacy and reach far wider audiences than we could otherwise.”
Mary Anning (1799–1847) was a skilled fossil hunter whose ground-breaking discoveries in the early 1800s revealed a world of extinct marine reptiles at a time when few people believed animals could become extinct. Her work fundamentally changed scientific thinking about the age of the world – yet as a woman from a poor working-class family with little formal education, she was not officially allowed to take part in scientific discourse.
Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and Remarkable Creatures (her novel about Mary Anning), is Trustee of Dorset Museum & Art Gallery and has curated the exhibition drawing on her long fascination with Mary’s story. The exhibition explores two key areas of her life: the beach where she hunted for fossils, and the town of Lyme Regis where she lived and worked. Visitors will see striking fossils found by Mary and others, including an impressive cast of the first Ichthyosaur skull discovered by 12-year-old Mary and her older brother Joseph, alongside letters, drawings, and hands-on displays explaining the social and scientific context of her era.
Tracy Chevalier said: “Mary Anning’s moment has arrived. More and more books are being written about her, a statue of her has been erected in Lyme Regis, and she is on the school curriculum, inspiring students far and wide to become citizen scientists. I am delighted to be working on an exhibition that will celebrate her work and her legacy. I hope our fundraising will ensure that many young people – and their schools and families – will get the chance to visit.”
To find out more about the exhibition, visit https://www.dorsetmuseum.org/whats-on/mary-anning-fossil-hunter/
To support the Mary Anning fundraiser, visit https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/30843#!/DonationDetails or contact enquiries@dorsetmuseum.org
Mary Anning – Fossil Hunter will be on display at Dorset Museum & Art Gallery 30 January – 2 May 2027.
