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Jeanne Villepreux-Power went from being a dressmaker’s assistant to inventing the world's first aquarium and becoming one of the most groundbreaking marine biologists of her day -- yet few people know her name today.

Born in France in 1794, she first gained prominence after she made the wedding gown for Princess Caroline. This also led her to meeting English merchant James Power, who she married in 1818 in Sicily. They lived on the island for over twenty years and it was there that Villepreux-Power undertook a rigorous self-taught study of its flora and fauna with a particular interest in the marine ecology.

In 1832, she began to study the paper nautilus or Argonauta argo, pictured here. The prominent opinion at the time was that the nautilus took its shell from another organism. In order to test whether this was true, Villepreux-Power invented the first glass aquarium, which allowed her to study nautilus in a controlled environment. As a result, she discovered that the nautilus created its own shell. As she continued her research, Villepreux-Power also designed two aquarium variants, a glass apparatus within a cage, used for shallow-water studies, and another cage-like aquarium which scientists could raise and lower to different depths as needed.

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