In 1822, while rooting around a quarry in rural SussexA county in the south east of England. , the doctor Gideon Mantell discovered a set of big teeth. He was convinced they belonged to a creature from the deep past. But fossil experts laughed at him.

Three years later, geologistA scientists who studies rocks and other materials that make up the Earth's surface. William Buckland found a huge skeleton in OxfordshireA county in England. . The first dinosaur had been discovered. Mantell was proven right. He made detailed drawings of his findings. These helped others to understand dinosaur anatomy. 

Today the Mantell drawings are owned by London's Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific organisation. They feature in a new digital archive revealed this week.

Mantell's work was remarkable. But it is not the full story. Many historians think that it was Mary Ann, Mantell's wife, who first discovered the bones. She also helped him with the drawings. But Mary received no credit. In 1839, she left him - and disappeared from the pages of history.

The society's online collection features 250,000 pages of text. These include a letter by GalileoAn Italian astronomer of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He clashed with the Catholic Church over his belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and was eventually forced to recant his views., a document confirming the discovery of Uranus and early Victorian photographs. Many documents shed fascinating light on the role of women in science. 

In 1734, New EnglandA region of the northeast USA including the states of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Some of the first European settlers in the region were people from England. resident Martha Gerrish sent in a letter depicting a sundog - a rare astronomical event in which a glowing halo appears around the sun. Gerrish was aware that she was unlikely to be heeded. She wrote: "If this came from a masculine hand, I believe it would be an acceptable present to the Royal Society."

The collection also features writings by astronomer siblings William and Caroline Herschel. Caroline discovered a new nebulaA cloud of gas or dust in outer space. and galaxy before her brother. But it was William who became the first president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820. Caroline was hired as his assistant.¹

There have been several famous women scientists, including Ada LovelaceAn English mathematician known as the first computer programmer. and Marie CurieA Polish-French pioneer in the study of radioactivity and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.. But they remain massively outnumbered by their male counterparts. Eight Nobel PrizesA set of prizes, laid out in the will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, given each year to people who "have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". in chemistry have been given to women, 183 to men. In physics, the ratio is four to 218.

Some think women deserve far more credit in science. Herschel and Lovelace lived at a time when few women even went to school. That they succeeded against the odds makes them, if anything, more remarkable than their male counterparts. Art historian Linda Nochlin calls it a "miracle" that so many women "have managed to achieve so much sheer excellence" in science, politics and the arts.²

Others believe that we cannot massage the past. The history of science is a story of discoveries. And it is impossible to deny that the majority of those can be credited to men. It would be unfair to diminish their achievement because of their gender.

Gender is not the only barrier to credit. In 1935, the Indian astrophysicistScientists who try to understand the contents of the universe. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was publicly humiliated by a racist tutor. Four decades later, his theories were proven true.³ As much as gender, we should give fair credit to those ignored because of their race and background.

Yes: There might be hundreds of cases in which a man has taken credit for a woman's work. The Mantells' story is just one instance. Historians should address this and give credit where it is truly due.

No: The novelist James Baldwin wrote: "People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." We cannot ignore that science was male-dominated. The important thing is to make a more equal future.

Or... It is a mistake to view history through the lens of gender in the first place. The Herschels, Lovelace, the Mantells: all of them were distinct individuals, not just representatives of their gender.