Mary Buckland

Mary Buckland (née Morland; 20 November 1797 – 30 November 1857) was an English palaeontologist, marine biologist and scientific illustrator.

Early life and family

Mary Morland was born in 1797, the eldest child of Benjamin Morland (1768–1833), a successful solicitor with a practice in Abingdon-on-Thames, and his wife Harriet (née Baster). In 1799 Harriet died, following the birth and early death of the couple's second child, and in 1802 Benjamin married Elizabeth Thornhill. By 1812, when Benjamin bought Sheepstead House at Marcham near Abingdon, Mary had many half-brothers and sisters. Although at some stage she attended a boarding school in Southampton, Mary also spent much time during her childhood at the home of Sir Christopher and Lady Pegge in Oxford, where Pegge, the Regius Professor of Anatomy at the University, encouraged her scientific interests.

In the midst of her teenage years she was intrigued by the studies conducted by Georges Cuvier and provided him with specimens and illustrations. Buckland established a name for herself as a scientific draughtswoman, who helped Conybeare, Cuvier, and her soon to be husband, William Buckland.

Marriage

According to Caroline Fox, Buckland met her husband the Reverend William Buckland in the following way: Both were travelling in Dorsetshire and each were reading a new and weighty tome by the French naturalist Georges Cuvier. They got into conversation, the drift of which was so peculiar that Dr. Buckland exclaimed, "You must be Miss Morland, to whom I am about to deliver a letter of introduction." He was right, and she soon became Mrs Buckland.