Observations on belemnites, and other fossil remains of Cephalopoda, discovered by Mr. Reginald Neville Mantell, C.E. in the Oxford clay near Trowbridge, in Wiltshire
A pictorial atlas of fossil remains, consisting of coloured illustrations selected from Parkinson's "Organic remains of a former world," and Artis's "Antediluvian phytology."
Gideon Algernon Mantell was a British physician, geologist, and paleontologist. He discovered four of the five genera of dinosaurs known during his time.
Background
Gideon Algernon Mantell was born on February 3, 1790, in Lewes, East Sussex, United Kingdom to the family of a shoemaker Thomas Mantell and Sarah Austen. He was the fifth child. His pedigree shows that among his ancestors was Thomas Mantell who was a headborough of Lewes in 1562 and constable in 1572. Very little is known about Mantell's father except that he was a Wesleyan of high integrity and Whig principles.
Mantell was brought up in a small cottage in St. Mary's Lane with his two sisters and four brothers. Since his early years, he demonstrated a particular interest in the field of geology.
Education
Gideon Mantell's early education began at a dame's school in Fisher Street. In 1797 age 7 he moved on to John Button’s Academy opposite Cliffe Church. He was precluded from attending the local grammar school owing to his father's religious principles, so he was sent to Swindon to live with his uncle the Reverend George Mantell, a Congregational minister, in order to attend a school in that town. Here he had the companionship of his cousin George, a lad about his own age, who later became a doctor and practiced at Farringdon, Berkshire. When he reached the age of 15 he was apprenticed to a surgeon at Lewes named James Moore, and in the last year of his bondage, he went to London to 'walk the hospitals' and attend lectures on professional subjects. In 1811 at the age of 21, he passed the examination for the diploma of the Membership Examination of the Surgical Royal Colleges of Great Britain and Ireland (MRCS), and after qualifying as a surgeon he returned to Lewes as a medical assistant to his former master, James Moore.
Career
After qualifying as a surgeon Mantell returned to Lewes as a medical assistant to his former master, James Moore on whose retirement he purchased both the practice and the house in Castle Street for the sum of £95 per annum for a period of seven years. He converted the house into one large house which provided ample accommodation for his surgery, and also for his museum, in which were displayed his collection of fossils, which already numbered many thousands. Mantell held two professional appointments, one as a parish doctor and the other as an army surgeon. He was parish doctor to three parishes in or near Lewes, for each of which he was paid £20 per annum for visits and medicines, with 1Os 6d for a midwifery case and 2s 6d extra if more than three miles distant from the surgery.
Despite much night work and long hours spent away from the surgery, he was a keen man midwife, delivering some three women each week. In 1828 he published an article in the London Medical Gazette, entitled 'On the Secale Cornutum', in other words on ergot of rye. Mantell stated in his article that he had delivered 2,410 women in the past fifteen years, with only two maternal deaths. This was indeed a remarkable achievement. Dr Bisset Hawkins, author of 'Elements of Medical Statistics' (1829), compares Mantell's ratio of one death in 1,205 cases with the mortality rate in lying-in hospitals: for instance, City of London, 1 in 70; Paris, 1 in 30; Edinburgh, 1 in 100; Dublin, 1 in 223. He attributed his success as an obstetrician to 'a very light hand, and delicacy of touch; and this', he said, 'will account to my giving less pain in my manual operations'.
In 1816 Mantell was appointed 'a military surgeon' with 'medical superintendency' of the Royal Artillery Hospital at Ringmer, near Lewes, a post he occupied for sixteen years. A few beds in the hospital were always occupied by soldiers who were being treated for wounds inflicted by corporal punishment, and Mantell was much affected on hearing that a soldier had died as a direct result of undergoing the punishment of flogging. One of his duties at the barracks necessitated his attendance at what he called 'that horrible and iniquitous punishment'. He was so shocked and disgusted by what he had witnessed on several occasions that he had decided to resign his appointment when the sudden removal of the commanding officer put an end 'to this dreadful method of maintaining discipline' (The Times 1835). After this, offenders were punished by solitary confinement or extra drill, and these methods were more effectual in upholding the strictest discipline, proving that it was possible to maintain discipline without resort to corporal punishment and, what is more, securing for the officers the respect and loyalty of the troops under their command.
In 1825, Mantell published Notice on the Iguanodon, a Newly Discovered Fossil Reptile, from the Sandstone of Tilgate Forest, in Sussex. Perhaps because he had been snubbed for so long by the Geological Society, he had the paper read at a meeting of the even-more-prestigious Royal Society. The paper was an instant success. Mantell was soon elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and made an honorary member of the Institute of Paris.
In the midst of Iguanodon glory, Mantell wrote books, including Fossils of the South Downs and Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex. They were attractive books with unattractive prices. In the equivalent of today's dollars, they cost roughly $1,000 a piece, and they sold poorly. In the 1830s and 1840s, apparently having learned his lesson, he produced more modest books aimed at more middle-class readers.
Early publishing disappointments aside, with Iguanodon, Mantell "arrived." But success often comes at a price. He began feeling too far away from the action in Lewes and in 1833 moved his family to Brighton. The decision proved disastrous.
In his first popular lecture in Brighton, Mantell assured the local physicians that he wasn't there as a rival, then gave local prospective patients the somewhat contradictory assurance that his geological studies wouldn't detract from his dedication as a doctor. The prospective patients didn't believe him, and he never established a successful medical practice there. His finances became so desperate that the town's council finally "saved" him by turning his big house into a public museum. Admission cost a shilling, about half a day's wages for a laborer or servant. Setting up the museum in his home left one room for Mantell and no room for his family; they had to move. Though the Mantells may have stayed together from time to time, Mary Ann left her husband for good in 1839. Not long afterward, one of their sons moved to New Zealand, and one of their daughters died of tuberculosis. Ironically, the museum in Brighton ultimately failed, and Mantell had to sell off the collection anyway and buy a practice at Clapham, moving to London in 1844. Perhaps even worse, he found himself upstaged by Richard Owen.
Though they started out on friendly terms, Mantell and Owen became bitter enemies over the years, squabbling over pterosaurs, Mesozoic birds and moas, along with dinosaurs. Owen even tried to prevent the Royal Society from awarding Mantell the Royal Medal. After introducing the world to Iguanodon, Mantell discovered Hylaeosaurus, an ankylosaur and the most complete dinosaur fossil found by the early 1830s. Other dinosaur discoveries included Cetiosaurus and Pelorosaurus. His discoveries had linked his name with the Age of Reptiles for two decades. But by establishing the Dinosauria, Owen effectively made the "terribly great reptiles" his own.
Along with his family and much of his fame, Mantell's health deserted him, too. A carriage accident injured his spine so badly that he was plagued by constant pain, and eventually by the crippling deformity. Ultimately the accident cost Mantell his very life - in a desperate attempt to dull the pain, he accidentally overdosed on opiates in 1852.
Besides Iguanodon, Mantell's contributions to science were legion. He was one of the independent discoverers of Megalosaurus, the dinosaur identified by William Buckland. Iguanodon never measured up to Mantell's biggest estimate, but his fossil find of Pelorosaurus - the first discovered brachiosaur - did, though the sauropod's true size wasn't appreciated until after Mantell's death. Mantell speculated that traces of microscopic life would be found in "Azoic" rocks deposited before the Cambrian Period, speculation since proven correct. He also discovered several dozen vertebrate and invertebrate fossils. While William Buckland delivered lectures to only a handful of students, Mantell could pack an auditorium full of several hundred people to hear his lecture titled "On a Frog and a Pebble." Despite his ill health, he continued to take pleasure in his work with fossil reptiles, writing numerous scientific papers and eight books.
In 2000, in commemoration of Mantell's discovery and his contribution to the science of paleontology, the Mantell Monument was unveiled at Whiteman's Green, Cuckfield. The monument has been confirmed as the location of the Iguanodon fossils that Mantell first described in 1822.
Gideon Algernon Mantell was baptized and raised as a Methodist.
Politics
After the death of his teacher, Mantell was schooled by John Button, a philosophically radical Whig who shared similar political beliefs with Mantell's father. Gideon Mantell is sometimes considered to be an owner of the same views.
Views
Outside his demanding medical practice, Mantell found time for geology. Although the animal associated with the odd tooth would ultimately prove to be among his greatest contributions to science, it was hardly his first. When he started digging fossils, all the known fossil assemblages from Cretaceous England were marine, but Mantell found remains of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems that he named the Strata of Tilgate Forest. He began finding bones of gigantic animals as early as 1820 and published his first book The Fossils of South Downs in 1822. His friend Charles Lyell later encouraged Mantell to narrow his focus and concentrate on fossil reptiles and fish.
After finding the puzzling tooth, Mantell showed it to other scientists, but they all dismissed it, the great Cuvier initially attributing it to a rhinoceros. Cuvier's dismissal was a blow to Mantell's confidence, but ultimately he remained firm: This tooth, along with other remains he found, belonged to a giant herbivorous reptile. In convincing other scientists of this, he had to demonstrate that the tooth was from Secondary (Mesozoic) strata. Through careful study of the rock layers, Mantell did just that, but members of the Geological Society of London saw little reason to listen to him. Discouraged but persistent, Mantell sent Cuvier more teeth and persuaded the French savant to reconsider his earlier decision. Cuvier did, and Mantell proudly took his letter to the Geological Society's next meeting.
Years later, Mantell recounted, with no small amount of pride, Cuvier's words: "These teeth are certainly unknown to me; they are not from a carnivorous animal. Do you not agree that it looks as if we have here a new animal, an herbivorous reptile?" Still, Cuvier's words alone didn't settle the matter. At that time, herbivorous reptiles (extinct or modern) were virtually unheard of in England. Mantell visited the Hunterian Museum where he found the tooth of a modern iguana - and a modern analogy. He envisioned the animal as a scaled-up iguana and eventually estimated its length at 100 feet. Richard Owen later overturned his interpretation with a mammalian articulation on four strong legs. Then Mantell overturned Owen's mammalian articulation, after discovering enough fossil evidence to show that the dinosaur's forelimbs were much shorter than its hind legs. Later paleontologists adopted a kangaroo-like stance for the fossil, but Mantell's interpretation - that the animal was at least partially bipedal - is the view that has withstood the test of time. Mantell also demonstrated that fossil vertebrae Owen had assigned to different species all belonged to Iguanodon.
Mantell was invited to consult on dinosaur sculptures erected at London's Crystal Palace Park, but he refused, disliking the commercial aspects of the whole venture. By the time giant sculptures were unveiled in 1854, he was dead, yet his findings lived on; Iguanodon's forearms, scales, tongue, and horned snout all resulted from his work.
Membership
Geological Society of London
,
United Kingdom
Linnean Society of London
,
United Kingdom
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
Personality
By all accounts, Gideon Mantell was considered something of a child prodigy. He was referred to as a charismatic person with a powerful voice.
Quotes from others about the person
"What a pleasure it must have been for him to confront his former critics, who, more than two years earlier, had sneered at his epoch-making fossils and, rather openly, at himself - the nonuniversity son of an unlettered shoemaker. Now all that was changed, for Gideon had done more than win Cuvier's sanction or approval. Almost singlehandedly, and despite the virtually unanimous disapproval of his most esteemed colleagues, he had persuaded the French authority to change his mind, yet so graciously that Cuvier had willingly recanted in public." - Dennis Dean, Mantell's biographer.
Connections
In May 1816 Gideon Algernon Mantell married Miss Mary Ann Woodhouse, daughter of George Edward Woodhouse, of Maida Hill, Paddington. Four children were born of his marriage to Miss Woodhouse two girls and two boys, and they were all baptized at St Michael's Church, Lewes. Mary Ann left her husband for good in 1839.
