Sarah Mawe was born Sarah Brown in
Derby, England to the mineralogist Richard Brown. She married the mineralogist and dealer in minerals
John Mawe in 1794 and he became her father's business partner, and took charge of the London mineral shop. "She became a highly competent mineral appraiser, purchaser, and identifier in her own right." The Mawes' shop on the Strand soon became extremely successful, and so they opened shops in
Cheltenham and
Matlock Bath. Mawe constructed her own collections of minerals, loaned as examples to
James Sowerby for photographs to be used in Exotic Mineralogy (1811-1820) and British Mineralogy (1804-1817). The business in London was taken on by
James Tennant who held Mawe's collection until it was sold in 1846. ==References==