Etheldred Anna Maria Benett (22 July 1776 – 11 January 1845) was an early English geologist who devoted much of her life to collecting and studying fossils that she discovered in South West England.

She worked closely with many principal geologists and her fossil collection, considered one of the largest at the time, played a part in the development of geology as a field of science.

Forty-one of her specimens were included in Sowerby's Mineral Conchology, a major fossil reference work, in which she had the second-highest number of contributions.

[3] After viewing a part of her collection, and assuming she was male, Tsar Nicholas I granted her a Doctorate of Civil Law from the University of St. Petersburg at a time when women were not admitted into higher education institutions.

[13] In response to her honorary doctorate, Benett noted that "scientific people, in general, have a very low opinion of the abilities of my sex.

[2] Another particularly fascinating section of her collection was that they contained microfossils, she would have been one of the first geologists to sieve for specimens such as these, and today these are primarily used as an indication for oil deposits.

[15] This mistake occurred when the Imperial Natural History Society of Moscow awarded membership to her under the name of Master Etheldredus Benett in 1836.

(Torrens 2000 p60) Concurring to John Needham's novel, "Forests of the Dinosaurs – Her work was instrumental within the advancement of Wiltshire's Jurassic Finale, and permitted for the Cretaceous to be connected with the stratigraphy of the Vale of Wardour within the county of Dorset.

She too communicated with a few other of the ‘giants’ of early fossil science such as Professor William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, Edward Charlesworth, Henry de la Beche, Roderick Impey Murchison and Samuel Woodward furthermore George Lyell who gave us the theory of Uniformitarianism – that the forms of nowadays are the same as those of yesteryear i.e. that "the present is the key to the past".

Mantell described her as "A lady of great talent and indefatigable research,"[3] whilst the Sowerbys note her "labours in the pursuit of geological information have been as useful as they have been incessant".

[20] A memorial board commemorating her achievements as England's 'The First Lady Geologist', is located in the churchyard of All Saints Parish Church, Norton Bavant.

However, this commission later goes on to be the first bed-to-bed section of the Upper Chicksgrove quarry, certain stones and fossils are still being extracted from the site today, especially those of plants and reptiles.

Benett corresponded extensively with fellow geologists such as George Bellas Greenough, first president of the Geological Society, Gideon Mantell, William Buckland, and Samuel Woodward.

In 1825, her painting of the meteorite which fell on County Limerick in September 1813 was deposited in Geological Society of London archives, presented in the University of Oxford by Reverend John Griffiths of Bishopstrow.

[17] Illness during the last twenty years of Benett's life meant she spent less time collecting specimens and instead commissioned local collectors.