Death Masks
Please click on a picture below to see a death mask
The George Marshall Medical Museum has a collection of ten death masks. These plaster masks are copies of the heads of criminals hanged in Worcester's gaol in the early 1800s! A tunnel ran under the road from the gaol to Worcester's old hospital (Castle Street) and the bodies would be taken through this to the hospital so that the doctors could study and dissect them. At the time, there was a law that said doctors could only dissect the bodies of criminals.
The death masks were made because doctors at the time thought that the shape of the head might be useful in predicting criminal behaviours. This is known at physiognomy. They thought that you could match the type of crime to the shape of the head. We know this is nonsense now though luckily!
Unfortunately, the Museum does not know who these people were as we have no original records about them. However, one of them is very unusual and we think we might have traced this man to a local mental hospital at Powick. After a bit of detective work at the Worcester Records Office, we think that this man was hanged for sheep stealing. He is a very interesting case as he has a condition called microcephaly (which means he was born with a very small head and brain). He was a resident at Powick mental hospital and there is a very good chance that he would not have understood that stealing was wrong because of his illness. He could even have been blamed for the stolen sheep and not even have committed the crime! Sadly, this man was convicted before the insanity plea was brought into British court trials.
These masks can be seen at the George Marshall Medical Museum.
