Gideon Mantell (February 3, 1790 – November 10, 1852)	Back     Site Map
	Early life Born to a shoemaker in Lewes, East Sussex, Mantell went into the medical career. He was apprenticed in 1805, and was later awarded his Diploma as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS). Even though being a doctor took up most of his time, he always managed to find space for his passion of geology, and even published his first paper in 1813 entitled ‘Geology of the Environs of Lewes’  In 1816 he set up his practice in his hometown of Lewes, that same year he married his wife Mary Ann Woodhouse. Fossil discoveries Fortunately for Gideon his wife Mary was also a keen fossil collector, which allowed him to pursue his passion, going for long walks together collecting fossils. Mantell’s first discoveries of major fossils came in the early 1820’s, with the unearthing of large bones on the South Downs in Sussex. What set these finds apart from all the others found in the area was that the fossils were of terrestrial and freshwater origin, not the marine organisms that had been previously found. These findings led him to write and publish his first book The Fossils of South Downs in 1822.     It was shortly before the publication of this book that Mantell made the discovery that he would be renowned for, not only for its implications for palaeontology, but also for the controversies surrounding the finding. The fossil was not like the large bones he had found earlier in his career, but merely of a few teeth. These were not however like any teeth that had been found before due to their size and morphology, the teeth are shown by a drawing in Figure 1. They appeared to belong to an herbivore, but the size of them had never been encountered before, leading to Mantell being shunned and ridiculed by the scientific community, with Georges Cuvier implying that the tooth was from nothing more than a rhinoceros. Mantell however was determined to prove them wrong, and through careful study of the area, determined that the strata that the fossils had come from were Mesozoic in age. With this information and more findings he managed to persuade Georges Cuvier the fossils as being of a dinosaur. The discovery of these fossil teeth was credited to Gideon but it is thought that it was likely to have been his wife Mary Ann that actually found the fossils, while her husband was working as a Doctor. One reason for this theory is that Gideon could never give an accurate account of how he found the teeth. Herbivorous reptiles were very uncommon, and this was one of the factors for many scientists dismissing the find. However once it had been accepted as the first herbivorous dinosaur Gideon called it Iguanodon due its resemblance of the modern Iguana. Richard Owen when presented with the remains decided upon an a creature that walked on all four drawn in Figure 2, like reptiles do nowadays, but later findings by Gideon showed that it had shorter fore-arms, and therefore was bipedal. He published his findings in 1825 in a paper entitled Notice on the Iguanodon, a Newly Discovered Fossil Reptile, from the Sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex. It took him this long to publish due to the struggle he initially faced with his discovery. Mantell and his family moved to Brighton in 1833. This move did not prove to be wise for him, as he immersed himself in his studies, largely ignoring his failing practice, and turning his house into a museum to display all his findings. However broke he was forced to sell all his fossils to the British museum for £4,000 and moved to Clapham common in 1838. The year after his wife left him, one of their sons moved to New Zealand and one of their daughters died in 1940. All through this period, Mantell was arguing with his once friend Richard Owen, who actively sought to prevent Mantell from receiving the royal medal. Even with all his important findings, it was his rival Owen, who was accredited with the naming of the Dinosauria. In 1841 he was involved in a carriage crash, which damaged his spine, leaving him bent over and in constant pain, eventually getting addicted to morphine. Resulting in him taking an overdose and dying in 1852 See also - Owen's Dinosauria References and Further Reading Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex (1827) by Gideon Mantell Geology of the South-east of England (1833) by Gideon Mantell The Wonders of Geology (2 vols., 1838) by Gideon Mantell Geological Excursions round the Isle of Wight, and along the Adjacent Coast of Dorsetshire (1847) by Gideon Mantell The Medals of Creation (2 vols., 1854) by Gideon Mantell Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs. Dean, Dennis R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 The Dragon Seekers: How an Extraordinary Circle of Fossilists Discovered the Dinosaurs and Paved the Way for Darwin. McGowan, Christopher. Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 2001. URLs http://en.wikipedia.org http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/geology/chamber/mantell.html http://www.strangescience.net/mantell.htm http://www.nndb.com/people/048/000095760/ http://www.dinohunters.com/Mantell/Dates.htm	Fig. 1. Fig. 2.