The Wheelchair Historian: Joseph Merrick A.K.A. "The Elephant Man"

By UnknownI (User:Belovedfreak) have emailed the Royal London Hospital Archives to request information regarding the author. The Trust Archivist for Barts and The London NHS Trust has confirmed that they do not know the name of the photographer, and no such name is included on the carte de visite. - Photograph downloaded from Sideshow Wiki (direct image link)The image hosted at the Sideshow Wiki is a copy of an original carte de visite of Joseph Merrick that is owned by Royal London Hospital Archives.Royal London Hospital ref: RLHLH/P/3/24/2.The carte de visite in the Royal London Hospital Archives had been in the possession of the Rev. H. Tristram Valentine, who was Chaplain at the London Hospital from 1885–1889., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15533733

Welcome to what will probably be my last post in my series on the 19th century freak show, for now at least. This week, we are leaving the land known as the United States of America and heading across possibly the biggest “pond” in the world, to good old England. You see, I will be discussing none other than Joseph Carey Merrick, better known as “The Elephant Man”. Some of you may be thinking, “I thought his name was John Merrick”. Let me try and clear it up. Frederick Treves, the doctor who looked after Merrick, mistakenly recorded his name as John in his 1923 memoir. As a result, the play and movie about Merrick’s life used the name John.

Why Was He Called “The Elephant Man”?

Joseph Merrick was born in Leicester, England on 5 August 1862. For all intents and purposes, he was a perfectly healthy baby. However, when he was roughly 2 years old, strange things started to happen. His lip started to swell and darkened skin growths appeared on his body, becoming bumpy and rough. Furthermore, lumps began to grow under Joseph’s skin, particularly on his chest, neck, and back of the head. When he was 5, things became much worse. The size of his head had grown greatly, predominantly on the right side. Extra skin had grown and was hanging down from the back and side of his head. As he grew, his jaw became deformed, making his speech difficult and almost unintelligible.

Merrick’s parents believed his deformity was caused by a close encounter Joseph’s mother had with an elephant when she was pregnant. She was at a fairground when a stampeding elephant knocked her over. That experience must have been terrifying, I’m sure you will agree. However, how did this incident cause Joseph’s deformities? It didn’t, but that’s not what they thought. At that time, they believed in something called maternal impression. This will be getting a blog post to itself, but I will explain it briefly here. They believed that while a woman was pregnant, the baby was easily influenced by the outside world. If the woman was startled at ANY stage of pregnancy, the resulting shock could alter the baby’s appearance. So, if you are frightened by a man with one arm, your baby will have one arm. If you get knocked over by an elephant, your baby will look like an elephant. You get the idea. Basically, pregnant women were like photocopiers.

As he got older, Merrick’s right arm and hand ballooned in size, eventually rendering it practically useless. So, what was the cause of these deformities? We may think we are scientifically advanced now, but it was not until 1996 that scientists believe they discovered what condition Joseph Merrick had. At first it was thought to be Elephantiasis, but this was ruled out. In 1976, it was suggested that severe neurofibromatosis was the cause. This disorder causes tumours to grow on the nervous system. However, Merrick’s problem was skin and bone overgrowths, so neurofibromatosis is unlikely. In 1996, Amita Sharma, a radiologist examined x-rays and CT scans of Merrick’s bones and concluded that he had Proteus syndrome, a disorder which was only identified in 1979. The disorder is identifiable by the following, all of which Merrick had: multiple lesions, overgrowth of one side of the body, an abnormally large head, partial giantism of the feet, as well as darkened spots on the skin.

A Tough Life

You may want to brace yourselves. Unlike some of the people I have discussed recently, Joseph Merrick did not have a happy life. Sure, everyone I have discussed so far was disabled and displayed for public entertainment, but most of them became rich and had happy lives. This unfortunately was not the case with Merrick. Where to begin? Merrick’s mother looked after him as best she could, and he even attended school like everybody else. However, when Joseph was 11, his mother died of bronchial pneumonia. Within a year, his father married their landlady. This is an excellent case of the wicked stepmother. She was not at all sympathetic to Joseph’s plight and made him leave school to find employment. He found a job rolling cigars in a factory, but within two years his right hand became so deformed that he was not able to carry out the task.

His father owned a haberdashery and acquired a peddler’s licence for Joseph, so he could sell to the public. However, by this time, his deformities were so severe that anyone he approached were either terrified of him or couldn’t understand what he was saying. As a result, Joseph sold hardly anything. Frustrated by this, his father gave Joseph a beating. Joseph left home to escape his father and stepmother and moved in with his uncle. He continued to try to sell goods to the public until his license was revoked, as his appearance continuously scared away potential customers.

At the age of 17, Merrick was forced to enter the Leicester Union Workhouse. A workhouse was a last resort and they were built with this in mind. The objective of those who ran workhouses was to make life in them much worse than life outside them. It is safe to say that Merrick got the hint. He hated life inside the workhouse so much, that in 1884 he decided to join a human oddities show, as they were called then. He figured that people were already staring at him, so he might as well earn a living from it. Merrick contacted Sam Torr, the owner of a Leicester music hall and they devised a plan to get him into a human oddities show. Merrick was exhibited as “The Elephant Man, Half-Man, Half-Elephant” and was very successful in Leicester and Nottingham. He eventually came to the attention of Tom Norman (who was essentially the English equivalent of P.T. Barnum) and put on display in London. Merrick wore a cape and veil to disguise his deformities in public, but he was often harassed by mobs.

Merrick's Hat and Hood (Wikimedia Commons)

The Elephant Man exhibit was situated across the street from the London Hospital, so several doctors and medical students would visit to see Merrick and his condition. One of these was a surgeon named Frederick Treves. He invited Merrick over to the hospital, so that he could examine him properly. Treves discovered that Merrick’s deformities were extreme, the circumference of his head was 36 inches in diameter and his right wrist was 12 inches in diameter. As well as this, his legs were so deformed that he had to walk with a cane. Treves wanted Merrick to attend the hospital again for further examination, but he refused as it made him feel like “an animal in a cattle market.”

In 1885 Merrick was forced to move to Belgium as freak shows had lost their appeal in England. While there, things went from bad to worse. His manager stole his life savings and abandoned him. Merrick managed to make it back to England in June 1886, but he was mobbed by a crowd upon arrival in London and arrested. The police could not understand him but found Treves’ business card in his pocket and brought him to the London Hospital. Treves examined Merrick again and was shocked by how badly his condition had deteriorated. He was deemed to be an ‘incurable’ and therefore could not be treated by the hospital. After failing to find another hospital willing to take him, Francis Carr Gromm, the chairman of the hospital, appealed to the public for help. The money that was raised as a result meant that several rooms in the hospital could be converted into accommodation for Merrick in 1887.

Merrick spent his time conversing with Treves, who was one of the few people who could understand him. He also took several trips to the countryside. He spent the rest of his life in the hospital and was well cared for. On 11 April 1890, Joseph Merrick was found dead lying in his bed. Due to the size of his head, he always slept upright, with his head resting on his knees. It is believed that he was experimenting with lying down when the immense weight of his head broke his neck. He was only 27 years old, which surprised me, as I always imagined him to be middle-aged for some reason.

I think it is safe to say that Joseph Merrick had a difficult life. It is fascinating to see how the public and medical professionals reacted to him though.

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Next week I will be moving away from people and towards to realm of ideas. By that I mean, I will be starting my series on the history of beliefs surrounding disability. Fingers crossed it won't be as dark and depressing!

The Wheelchair Historian

The Wheelchair Historian

Friday 4 December 2020

Joseph Merrick A.K.A. "The Elephant Man"

Why Was He Called “The Elephant Man”?

A Tough Life

Further Reading

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