by Peter Ford
freakshop in, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Whittington, 1
Wilberforce, Samuel, bishop of Winchester, 1
Wilson, S. A. Kinnier, 1
Wilton’s Music Hall, 1
Wimpole Street, Treves’s house and practice in, 1, 2; Merrick’s visit to, 1, 2
Winder, Jack, coffee–shop proprietor, 1
Wintle, Mr and Mrs Joe, 1
Wirksworth, 1
Wombwell, George, 1
Wombwell’s Royal Menagerie, 1, 2
Wood, Mrs John, 1
Woodhouse Eaves, 1
World’s Fair, 1, 2
Young & Sandy, comedians, 1
1. The portrait of Sir Frederick Treves by Luke Fildes that hangs in the Royal London Hospital Medical College (Royal London Hospital)
2. Dr Reginald Tuckett, who introduced Treves to the Elephant Man
3. The broad highway of the Whitechapel Road outside the London Hospital. The shop in which the Elephant Man was exhibited was directly opposite the hospital entrance, (Reproduced from Round London, 1896. courtesy Nicholas Reed)
4. The birth entry for Joseph Carey Merrick in the local Leicester register
5. The Leicester Union Workhouse in the 1850’s, where Joseph Merrick was first admitted in 1879 (Leicester Museums and Art Gallery)
6. The record of Joseph Merrick’s discharge from the Leicester Union Workhouse (Leicester Museums and Art Gallery)
7. A broadsheet advertising Wombwell’s Royal Menagerie
8. Joseph’s uncle, Charles Barnabas Merrick, in old age
9. The barber’s shop in Leicester; Joseph’s cousin, Charles Henry Merrick, is being shaved in the chair
10. A surgical operation of the 1880s reflecting Joseph’s experience in the Leicester infirmary (courtesy The Practitioner)
11. Sam Torr, music-hall entrepreneur
12. Tom Norman, the ‘Silver King’ of the showgrounds
13. Sam Torr dressed to perform his speciality number, ‘On the Back of Daddy-O’
14. ‘Professor’ Sam Roper, travelling fair proprietor
15. Bertram Dooley, ready for the boxing booth as one of ‘Roper’s Midgets’
16. The ‘pillar-box’ hat, devised by Sam Roper, set on the cast of Merrick’s head
17. A hand-bill for Sam Torr’s Gaiety Palace of Varieties, Leicester, on whose stage Joseph Merrick was possibly exhibited for the first time
18. The back and front covers of the pamphlet containing Joseph Merrick’s autobiography (British Museum)
19. The SS Norwich, the boat by which Merrick returned from his disastrous trip to the continent (Great Eastern Railway Society)
20. A Great Eastern Railway boat train of the same type and rolling stock that carried Merrick to London. (Crown Copyright National Railway Museum York)
21. A crowded platform at Liverpool Street Station, illustrated in the Railway Magazine, December 1898 (reproduced from Liverpool Street Station © Academy Editions)
22. The earliest known illustrations of Joseph Merrick: engravings from the Transactions of the Pathological Society of London, 1885
23-24 Engravings of Merrick’s head published in the British Medical Journal, December 1886, but probably contemporaneous with plate 22
23-24 Engravings of Merrick’s head published in the British Medical Journal, December 1886, but probably contemporaneous with plate 22
25. The front of the London Hospital as it was in 1876. The new Grocers’ Wing is to the left of the main facade (from The Illustrated London News)
26. The Princess of Wales declares the new Nurses Home open on 21st May 1887 (from The Illustrated London News)
27. Merrick’s specially built armchair (photograph by Dr. C E Taylor)
28. The cardboard model of a church constructed by Merrick for Mrs Kendal (Royal London Hospital)
29. Miss Eva Luckes, the redoubtable matron of the London Hospital, with her team of nursing sisters in 1892 (Royal London Hospital)
30-33. A set of four photographs of Joseph Merrick, showing his condition at the time of his admission to the London Hospital in 1886
34. Madge Kendal in Pinero’s The Hobby Horse, the play in which she was starring at the time she was exerting her philanthropic influence on Merrick’s behalf (Theatre Museum, London)
35. The deeply recessed boxes at Drury Lane Theatre as they were in 1887. Merrick probably occupied the one nearest the stage (Raymond Mcinder & Joe Mitchenson Theatre Collection)
36. Charles Lauri as Puss and Tilly Wadman in the principal boy role of Jack in the 1887 Drury Lane pantomime, Puss in Boots. (Theatre Museum, London)
37-38. The only known surviving example of Merrick’s correspondance: a letter of thanks, with envelope (above), to Mrs Leila Maturin
37-38. The only known surviving example of Merrick’s correspondance: a letter of thanks, with envelope (above), to Mrs Leila Maturin
39. This photograph, probably one of the last taken, dates from 1888, when Joseph still had about 2 years to live
40. Merrick’s skeleton compared with the cast of his head
41. The post-mortem cast of Merrick’s head and shoulders seen in close-up
42. Merrick’s skull, showing the dramatic distortion of its bone structure
43. A close-up of Merrick’s pelvis, showing his seriously atrophied left hip-joint
44. The casts of Merrick’s arms compared with a normal arm
45. A cast of his right foot
46. Walter Steel and his wife. As a farm lad, Walter had befriended the Elephant Man during his country holidays in Northamptonshire
47. Joseph Merrick in his ‘Sunday Best’ for a portrait photograph
48. The ‘deliberate mistake’ in Treves’s autograph manuscript of ‘The Elephant Man’, where he scored out ‘Joseph’ and replaced it with ‘John’ (courtesy Nicholas Reed)
About the Author
MICHAEL HOWELL, who lived at Dudley in the West Midlands, was educated at Dudley Grammar School before he went on to study medicine at the University of Birmingham. He qualified in 1954 and then, during the course of his national service, became medical officer in the 22nd Battalion Grenadier Guards. After specializing in children’s diseases for a time, he made the decision in 1960 to go into general practice, in which he continued until his death in 1986.
PETER FORD, who lives at Longhope in Orkney, served as a national serviceman in the Royal Artillery in Malaya. He then worked in publishing as an editor in London for twelve years before becoming a freelance writer and editor, specializing in editorial consultancy and co-authorship. He has written for collectors and has an interest in the history of popular entertainment. He wrote, with Max Wall, The Fool on the Hill, the autobiography of the great comedian, and Rings and Curtains: Family and Personal Memoirs, with the veteran acrobat and actor, Jack Le White.
Michael Howell began his research into the life of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, with the idea of writing an article. His findings eventually led to his collaboration with Peter Ford. They also worked together on a recasting of Merrick’s story for children and a collection of documentary medical detective stories called Medical Mysteries (retitled The Ghost Disease in its paperback edition).
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
13 Charlotte Mews
London W1T 4EJ
www.allisonandbusby.com
Copyright © MICHAEL HOWELL and PETER FORD 1980, 1983, 1992
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
First published by Allison & Busby in 1980.
Second (illustrated) edition published in 1983.
Third edition published by Penguin Books in 1992.
This ebook edition published 2011.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–4049–9