Jane Longstaff

Mary Jane Longstaff, (née Donald; 27 August 1855 – 19 January 1935) was a British malacologist, specialising in fossil gastropods of the Palaeozoic.

Early life Mary Jane Donald was born in 1855 in Carlisle. She was the eldest child of Matthew Hodgson Donald, a prominent local industrialist, and his wife Henrietta Maria Roper. She had three younger siblings. She was sent to a private girls' school in London, and then attended the Carlisle School of Art. Because so few papers have been published on the taxa she studied, her taxonomic work remains relevant to the present day.

In 1906, she was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society. In addition to her malacological work, she had some interest in botany.

Later life Her husband died in 1921, after several years of ill health.