Inciting another to exhume bodies

Phrenology is a study of the structure of the skull to determine a person's character and mental tendencies. In layman’s terms, a phrenologist claims to be able to tell the character of a person by the bumps on his or her head. In the nineteenth century, phrenology was regarded as a legitimate science.

A phrenologist’s chart of a human head

(Wikipedia)

Scottish-born Archibald Hamilton was a phrenologist with a particular interest in the skulls of criminals. In 1860 he was in Maitland when two inmates of Maitland Gaol, Jim Crow and John Jones, were hanged - Crow for rape and Jones for murder. Following their execution and in keeping with his practice, Hamilton took plaster casts of the two men’s skulls, before their remains were buried in St Peter’s Glebe Cemetery.

A macabre twist

The story took a macabre twist three months later when the sexton at the Glebe Cemetery, William House, complained to the rector, Reverend Greaves, that Hamilton had offered him £1 to dig up the bodies of Jim Crow and John Jones and remove their heads. Hamilton evidently wanted more than mere plaster casts to conduct his investigation! The next day, Greaves reported the request to Police Magistrate Edward Denny Day who issued a summons for Hamilton’s arrest.

Hamilton may have etched a profile for himself in the district through his ‘scientific’ lectures, but posthumous beheadings were apparently beyond the pale. The law took a dim view, and Hamilton was committed to stand trial. The alleged crime was ‘inciting another to exhume corpses from a burial ground’.

In its issue of 14 August 1860, The Sydney Morning Herald reported verbatim the indictment of Hamilton in Maitland Quarter Sessions. Hamilton defended himself, his defence more or less around the theme: ‘Just as a geologist needs rocks, a phrenologist needs heads’. Whether it was the eloquence of Hamilton’s defence or simple racism on the part of the jury, Crow being Aboriginal and thought to be a Wonnarua man, Hamilton was acquitted after a deliberation of only 15 minutes.

The verdict was given despite a lengthy summary by Justice Owen who reminded the jury

… that the possession of human bones might be very important for the ends of science, and very desirable for the benefit of the public; but it is quite clear that in pursuing science, it must be done within legitimate bounds!   

Archibald Hamilton

(Alexandra Roginski, The Hanged Man and the Body Thief, 2015.)

Despite Hamilton’s escape from the clutches of the law, it could not and did not save Jim Crow from the phrenologist, who, at some point within the next two years broke into the grave and added Crow’s skull to his collection. He displayed it unashamedly in lectures for decades afterwards.

After Hamilton's death in 1884, his widow Agnes shipped his collection of 55 human skulls and skull fragments from Sydney to the National Museum of Victoria, today's Museum Victoria, where they remained for well over a hundred years.

The aftermath

In 2015, Crow’s body was exhumed after the case was examined by a Canberra academic, Alexandra Roginski, who was studying the repatriation of Aboriginal remains. Jim Crow’s remains were accepted by James Wilson-Miller and his uncle, Tom Miller, elders of the Maitland-based Wonnarua Nation Aboriginal Corporation. An apology was offered in a solemn ceremony in the Indigenous Garden of Museum Victoria’s Bunjilaka Aboriginal Centre.

References

Roginski, Alexandra, The Hanged Man and the Body Thief, Monash University Publishing, Melbourne, 2015.

Short, Kevin, ’Our past: the macabre world of Maitland phrenologist Archibald Hamilton’, Maitland Mercury, 30 March 2020.