32 Facts About Gideon Mantell

Gideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS was an English obstetrician, geologist and palaeontologist.

Gideon Mantell was born in Lewes, Sussex as the fifth-born child of Thomas Gideon Mantell, a shoemaker, and Sarah Austen.

Gideon Mantell was raised in a small cottage in St Mary's Lane with his two sisters and four brothers.

Gideon Mantell explored pits and quarries in the surrounding areas, discovering ammonites, shells of sea urchins, fish bones, coral, and worn-out remains of dead animals.

Gideon Mantell spent two years with Button, before being sent to his uncle, a Baptist minister, in Swindon, for a period of private study.

Gideon Mantell served as an apprentice to Moore in Lewes for a period of five years, in which he took care of Mantell's dining, lodging and medical issues.

Gideon Mantell delivered Moore's medicines, kept his accounts, wrote out bills and extracted teeth from his patients.

On 11 July 1807, Thomas Gideon Mantell died at the age of 57.

Gideon Mantell left his son some money for his future studies.

Gideon Mantell began to teach himself human anatomy, and he ultimately detailed his new-found knowledge in a volume entitled The Anatomy of the Bones, and the Circulation of Blood, which contained dozens of detailed drawings of fetal and adult skeletal features.

Gideon Mantell received his diploma as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1811.

Gideon Mantell returned to Lewes, and immediately formed a partnership with his former master, James Moore.

Gideon Mantell named the new strata the Strata of Tilgate Forest, after an historical wooded area and it was later shown to belong to the Lower Cretaceous.

In 1821 Gideon Mantell planned his next book on the geology of Sussex.

How the king heard of Gideon Mantell is unknown, but Gideon Mantell's response is known.

Galvanised and encouraged, Gideon Mantell showed the teeth to other scientists but they were dismissed as belonging to a fish or mammal and from a more recent rock layer than the other Tilgate Forest fossils.

Gideon Mantell was still convinced that the teeth had come from the Mesozoic strata and finally recognised that they resembled those of the iguana, but were twenty times larger.

Gideon Mantell tried in vain to convince his peers that the fossils were from Mesozoic strata, by carefully studying rock layers.

When it was proved Gideon Mantell was correct in 1825, the only question was what to call his new reptile.

Years later, Gideon Mantell had acquired enough fossil evidence to show that the dinosaur's forelimbs were much shorter than its hind legs, therefore proving they were not built like a mammal as claimed by Sir Richard Owen.

Gideon Mantell went on to demonstrate that fossil vertebrae, which Owen had attributed to a variety of different species, all belonged to Iguanodon.

Gideon Mantell named a new genus of dinosaur called Hylaeosaurus and as a result became an authority on prehistoric reptiles.

In 1833, Gideon Mantell relocated to Brighton but his medical practice suffered.

Gideon Mantell was almost rendered destitute, but for the town's council, which promptly transformed his house into a museum.

Gideon Mantell moved to Clapham Common in South London, where he continued his work as a doctor.

Gideon Mantell got stuck in the reins and was dragged along for 5 miles before arriving at his destination.

Gideon Mantell moved to Pimlico in 1844 and began to take opium, as a painkiller, in 1845.

On 10 November 1852, Gideon Mantell took an overdose of opium and later lapsed into a coma.

Gideon Mantell's surgery, on the south side of Clapham Common, is a dental surgery.

At the time of his death Gideon Mantell was credited with discovering four of the five genera of dinosaurs then known.

The monument has been confirmed as the location of the Iguanodon fossils that Gideon Mantell first described in 1822.

Gideon Mantell is buried at West Norwood Cemetery within a sarcophagus attributed to Amon Henry Wilds that replicates the sanctuary of Natakamani's Temple of Amun.