Rediscovering characters lost to history

Imagine working all your life making ground-breaking discoveries, or developing world-changing theories – but then vanishing from the record and leaving no lasting legacy. This has, historically, been the experience of many people in science.

I’ve been writing text for a new exhibition at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Breaking Ground, exploring the archives of William Buckland who published the first description of a dinosaur in 1824. Megalosaurus was discovered in Stonesfield, Oxfordshire, and started a dino-craze so intense that Charles Dickens included the creature in the opening pages of Bleak House. Huge sculptures of a megalosaurus, plus an iguanodon and a hylaeosaurus discovered in 1825 and 1833 (models below), appeared in Crystal Palace Park, where you can still see them now.

William Buckland’s name is well-known today for his dinosaur discovery, but also for his role as the first Reader of Geology at Oxford University, and also, while he was at it, as a Church of England minister. There is a blue plaque commemorating him on the house where he lived in Islip, just outside Oxford.

And yet, crediting William Buckland as a lone pioneer continues a tradition of privilege that has held sway for far too long. The Breaking Ground exhibition, curated by an expert team at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sets out to give a fuller picture of the network of people whose combined effort and wisdom allowed the incredible discoveries of the 1820s and thereafter. They include women of high and low rank, and men of lower rank than William Buckland who made fossil finds in the field, both in Britain and beyond. It is all a reminder that institutions of the patriarchy – educational, religious and scientific – have only ever favoured powerful men – all the rest of us, men included, are easily written out of history.

One of the most significant, and poignant, of the overlooked, is William’s wife. Born Mary Morland, her gift for scientific illustration gained her recognition in her youth. In 1821, Mary’s fossil drawings were selected for publication by Georges Cuvier, director of the Natural History Museum in Paris. She also worked with William Buckland who commissioned her to illustrate key journal papers, including the announcement of Megalosaurus in 1824 (above – you can see the original fossil in the exhibition). It was through the combination of description and illustration that news of the discovery spread so far and fast.

William and Mary married in 1825, and they enjoyed a year-long geological honeymoon around Europe. Mary enthusiastically and expertly recorded the characteristics of every landscape they visited in her diary. They were a great team. However, after her marriage, she acted as William’s assistant while he rose to fame as a professional palaeontologist. Her married name rarely appeared again to acknowledge her labour as the artist, curator, or natural historian that she continued to be in service of her husband. Mary did not expect credit for her contributions, and neither William nor Mary thought women belonged in the corridors of scientific power. So she disappeared.

Now, however, her achievements are coming to light through the archive, which includes drawings, letters and diaries. The exhibition is rich with specimens and other evidence of this momentous period, made by many people – both famous and unknown – whose names all deserve to be remembered. There is a marvellously detailed online exhibition that will last beyond the physical show, but I hope you can get to see it before it closes on 29th September 2025 and discover all the stories for yourself.

Exhibition developers Leanne Melbourne and Ellena Grillo along with me at the Bucklands’ house in Islip.