Etheldred Benett

Etheldred Benett (1776 – January 11,1845) was an early English female geologist, the second daughter of Thomas Benett and great-granddaughter of a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

Later she resided at Norton House, near Warminster, in Wiltshire, and for more than a quarter of a century devoted herself to collecting and studying the fossils of her native county. Her speciality was in the Middle Cretaceous Upper Greenland in the Vale of Wardour and was well known for her collection of Tisbury Coral. She wrote and privately published a monograph, "A Catalogue of the Organic Remains of the County of Wiltshire" (1831). Her fossil collection is currently housed at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

References

* Spamer, E. E. and A. E. Bogan. 1989. Recovery of the Etheldred Benett Collection of fossils mostly from Jurassic-Cretaceous strata of Wiltshire, England, analysis of the taxonomic nomenclature of Benett (1831), and notes and figures of type specimens contained in the collection. "Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia" 141: 115-180.

* Torrens, H. S., E. Benamy, E. B. Daeschler, E. E. Spamer and A. E. Bogan. 2000. Etheldred Benett of Wiltshire, England, the first lady geologist: her fossil collection in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and the rediscovery of "lost" specimens of Jurassic Trigoniidae (Mollusca: Bivalvia) with their soft anatomy preserved. "Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia" 150: 59-123.

*1911