Susanna Drury was the sister of Dublin miniature painter, Franklin Drury who died in 1771. It is not known where she trained as an artist, though it is likely to have been London, because of the subjects she chose to paint. From 1690 onwards the Giant's Causeway attracted a great deal of attention and in about 1740 was depicted by Susanna Drury in two fine paintings which won the £25 premium prize. These served as the basis for a pair of magnificent engravings by Francois Vivares, which received wide European circulation. It was the second half of the 18th century before any progress was made in an explanation of the Causeway. In 1765 and 1771 the French geologist Nicholas Desmarest suggested that basalt such as that of the causeway was really consolidated lava which had been poured from volcanic eruptions. Desmarest had never visited the Causeway, but he had studied Susanna Drury's illustrations carefully, and for some years thereafter areas of columnar basalt in France, Germany or wheresoever they might occur, were known as 'Giant's Causeways'.

Born:	c.1698
Died:	1770